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"slug": "alameda-the-island-that-almost-wasnt",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda has all the sure signs of an island. To get there, you have to use a bridge, a tunnel or a boat. Locals talk about going “on and off island.” And residents, like Nate Puckett, wear Alameda-themed T-shirts that say “Islander.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t leave the island for, like, weeks,” says Puckett, who lives, works and raises two kids in the Bay Area city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, Puckett’s sense of place was thrown off-kilter. He was enjoying an ice cream at a favorite local spot — Tucker’s — when he looked up at a historical map on the wall. It showed Alameda connected to the mainland. That must be wrong, he thought; Alameda is an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the map was not wrong — it was just old. In fact, Alameda is not a natural island. And it almost never became an island at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It kind of felt like we’ve been living a lie,” Puckett says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puckett asked Bay Curious to find out more about Alameda’s island origin story. The project took nearly 30 years to complete and had enough twists and turns to make anyone dizzy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>When it all began\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/ohc/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11983868 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked.jpg\" alt=\"An old map shows what is now Alameda Island as connected to the mainland.\" width=\"999\" height=\"752\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked.jpg 999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A map of Alameda from 1877 shows it as a connected peninsula, not an island. \u003ccite>(Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Center)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the 1870s, Alameda was a big peninsula that jutted out from what is now Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood like an outstretched arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, things were pretty quiet in that part of the East Bay (it wasn’t Oakland until later). The marshy region was not very populated; the landscape was mostly wide open fields and the estates of a few wealthy families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Oakland’s inner harbor was nearby, and it was quickly becoming a bustling center for maritime commerce. Once the Gold Rush started, more and more ships arrived, bringing in all sorts of goods. And Oakland itself was growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But navigation to the budding port was tricky. Boats had to traverse a wild waterway that hadn’t seen much development yet. Sediment on the harbor’s bottom would shift with the tides, causing sandbars to move in unpredictable patterns that caused problems for navigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The sandbars] were there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, [and then] they’d be over here on Tuesday and Thursday,” Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky says. “It impeded the shipping traffic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983870\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983870\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett.jpg\" alt=\"Older man in blue sweater stands next to a younger one in brown.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1276\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-1536x1021.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dennis Evanosky (left) with Nate Puckett next to the Alameda canal. The Park Street bridge looms in the background. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland was never going to become the shipping destination it wanted to be if the waterways remained so unpredictable and the port so difficult to reach. And Oakland had big development ambitions, says Richard Walker, a \u003ca href=\"https://geography.berkeley.edu/professor-emeritus-richard-walker\">professor emeritus in geography at UC Berkeley\u003c/a> and author of several books about California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sense of competition with San Francisco [was] intense,” Walker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800s, Oakland was coming into its own politically and economically, developing its own banks, businesses and shipping companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That grows and grows so that Oakland, by the early 20th century, is really thumbing its nose at San Francisco,” Walker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to local lobbying, Congressmen worked to bring in millions of federal dollars to pay the Army Corps of Engineers to improve the harbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since shifting sandbars on the bottom was the biggest problem, \u003ca href=\"https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca2600/ca2606/data/ca2606data.pdf\">the initial plan\u003c/a> was to cut through the marshy area of the Alameda peninsula, where it was connected to the mainland, to create a canal. Engineers thought if they built a dam at one end, they could release powerful torrents of water through the canal to flush out built-up sediment in the harbor. That would clear the way for bigger ships to come and go more easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project got the green light in the early 1870s, but over the next three decades, it hit roadblock after roadblock.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Resistance to the project\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">Eleven families owned land where the government wanted to dredge the canal\u003c/a>. Oakland officials offered families $40,000 at the time, more than $1.2 million today. But one person refused — \u003ca href=\"https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/about-6\">A.A. Cohen, a railroad industry baron and attorney\u003c/a> who owned an estate with a 70-room mansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were screwing with his kingdom,” says Patty Donald, Cohen’s great-great-granddaughter and manager of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/history\"> Cohen Bray house\u003c/a>, a historic Victorian building in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. The Cohen family challenged the canal project more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was one of the most powerful people in Alameda at that time because he had bought a failing rail system,” Donald says. “He built it up in two years and created another one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the canal project progressed despite Cohen’s legal challenge, and by 1889 the excavation was underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The setbacks pile up\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Quickly, the canal project suffered another setback — flooding. The winter of 1889 was one of the wettest on record. More than 45 inches of rain fell that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Disaster struck on a stormy night in January when Sausal Creek overflowed its banks at Fruitvale Avenue and flooded the ditch and equipment,” \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">wrote historian Woody Minor in the Alameda Museum newslette\u003c/a>r. “It took two months to pump out the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next, the project’s proponents had to deal with public opinion and perhaps the very first complaints from Alamedans about commuting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People complain, ‘Well if you’re gonna have this canal here, how are we going to get home?’” Evanosky says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dredged canal cut across one of the main thoroughfares, leading to the Alameda peninsula, disrupting traffic \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">for two years\u003c/a>. The Park Street bridge opened in 1891, and Alameda’s two other bridges, at High Street and Fruitvale Avenue, were built the following decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If legal battles, payouts and flooding weren’t enough, there was an economic depression in the 1890s. Funding for the canal project dried up. And then, the project’s long-time champion at the Army Corp of Engineers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Portals/68/docs/History/Engineers%20at%20the%20Golden%20Gate.pdf?ver=2019-10-24-161149-027\">Major George Mendell\u003c/a>, retired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the nail in the coffin for the dam/canal combo plan came from \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">new research suggesting that dredging deeper in Oakland’s harbor would be more effective for boat passage\u003c/a> than this idea of flushing sediment away using a dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While government officials debated the next steps, a partially dug, unfinished giant trench was left.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Fetid water awash with dead fish’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At this point, 20 years after the project began, raw sewage in the area’s waterways had become a real problem. In the late 1800s, people in Oakland and Alameda started installing residential sewer systems, and the waste flowed right into Lake Merritt and the Oakland Harbor. The unfinished canal became a cesspool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fetid water awash with dead fish lapped against the dam and seeped into the ditch, emitting a pervasive stench,” \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">wrote Minor in his history of the island\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameda’s health officer at the time, Dr. John T. McClean, became the biggest crusader for completing the canal. In a letter to Washington, published by the Oakland Enquirer in 1897, McLean argued that the stench from the incomplete trench had not only become offensive, but the foul water was killing fish and crabs and posed a health hazard. Better water circulation through the canal would help flush away foul substances, he argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, government officials soon found the money to put a massive steam shovel to work ripping through the marsh between Alameda and modern-day Oakland. They finished dredging the canal in 1902, nearly 30 years after the plan was first hatched. Alameda was officially an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no dam. … but residents celebrated anyway — through days of fireworks, carnival acts and a procession of two hundred lighted boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A failed idea? \u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The scale and ambition of the Alameda Island project don’t impress geographer Richard Walker. In the grand scheme of things, he says, the project was actually pretty small. There are very few parts of the San Francisco Bay that humans haven’t somehow altered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is California,” Walker says. “California [is] one of the most monumentally re-engineered landscapes on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a century after the project was completed, the water in the neatly engineered tidal canal that separates Alameda from Oakland is relatively still, looking like a moat around a castle. People mostly use it for recreation now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nate Puckett says it doesn’t bother him that Alameda isn’t naturally an island. Residents here still bond over bridge and tunnel delays and over a beer at Alameda Island Brewing Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nOlivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>One of the best parts about a deep and long-running friendship is you can poke a little fun at each other for your quirks. Like how you’re a diehard fan for a chronically losing sports team or how you put ketchup on everything – gross. For Nate Puckett, his friends rib him about how he never leaves the city of Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> So I work here, I live here, my kids go to school here. I have a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old. So I don’t leave the island for like weeks. And people make fun of me for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Alameda is an island, in case you didn’t know, and that fact is pretty wrapped up in the identity of some people who live there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> I have a T-shirt that says Islander. That’s, like, Alameda themed. There’s Alameda Island Brewing. Like, you talk about whether, you know, you’re on the island or not on the island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But recently, Nate’s sense of place was thrown off-kilter. He was eating ice cream at a local spot – Tuckers. He glanced up at a historical map hanging on the wall. And there, he saw something that shook him to the core. Alameda was connected to what is now mainland Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> It kind of felt like we’ve been all living a lie. It kind of felt like, no, that’s wrong. Alameda is an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But no. The map was not wrong. It was just \u003ci>old\u003c/i>. Alameda is not a natural island. And it almost never became an island at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bay Curious theme music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>On this episode of Bay Curious, we’re going to find out how and \u003ci>why \u003c/i>Alameda was sliced off the mainland. It’s a story with enough twists and turns to make your head spin. I’m Olivia Allen Price. We’ll dive in just after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor break\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Making Alameda into an island took nearly 30 years. And in the end, the original idea for the massive excavation, didn’t quite pan out as planned. KQED Producer Pauline Bartolone tells us all about the bumpy journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Flooding, legal battles, an economic slump and raw sewage. They’re all part of Alameda’s island origin story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It all starts back in the 1870s, Alameda was a big peninsula, jutting out like an outstretched arm from what is now Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, things were pretty quiet where Alameda connected with the mainland. Not many people lived in this marshy region. Think open fields and maybe just a few estates of wealthy families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just to the west was a waterway, the Oakland harbor, that opened up to the San Francisco Bay. And it was becoming a bustling center for maritime commerce. More and more ships were arriving since the Gold Rush, bringing all sorts of goods. But navigation in this waterway was tricky. Sediment on its floor would shift — a lot! — causing all sorts of problems for boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music ends. We hear the sounds of street traffic and outside noises.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> The trouble is, there were sandbars. And there were all kinds of impediments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky took me and our question-asker, Nate Puckett, on a tour along Alameda’s waterfront. He says around what is now the Port of Oakland, the waterway was wild and untouched, with sandbars that would ebb and flow with the tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They were there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then they’d be over here on Tuesday and Thursday, this place else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> Oh, yeah, haha.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> And it impeded the shipping traffic!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The unpredictable nature of the waterway didn’t work for the shipping industry, which wanted to get more boats into the port. Oakland had big development ambitions, says Richard Walker, a professor emeritus in geography at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker: \u003c/b>Then, the sense of competition with San Francisco is intense, even though there’s a lot of San Francisco investment in Oakland. But you start to create Oakland having its own capitalist class, its own leadership who have banks in Oakland, have businesses, you know, have shipping companies, and they actually have a local interest. And that grows and grows so that Oakland, you know, by the early 20th century, is really thumbing its nose at San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Local Congressmen made deals to bring in millions of federal dollars to improve the harbor. Evanosky says the big idea was to dredge a canal all the way across the north side of Alameda, turning the peninsula into an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>We hear sounds of traffic near the canal\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They planned to build this tidal canal as a scouring channel. What they planned to do was build a dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> The dam would be built on the far east side of Alameda. And then during ebb tide, when the water is naturally flowing out to the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They are going to open that dam, and we’re going to have the water to, I say, “whoosh” through the scouring channel here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> Engineers thought this would harness the natural power of tides to flush sediment out of the Oakland estuary and toward the Bay, learning the passage for boats coming in and out of the narrow waterway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> And these aren’t necessarily big, huge ships. These could be smaller ships, but they need a place to navigate and turn around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> So, that was the plan. … in the beginning. The project got the green light in the early 1870s but had a slow start. And over the next three decades, it hit roadblock after roadblock. Early on, the government had to buy out 11 families who would lose part of their estates to the canal. They were offered $40,000 at the time, what is more than $1.2 million today. But one family refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patty Donald:\u003c/b> They were screwing with his kingdom. If you put it that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Patty Donald is the great-great-granddaughter of A.A. Cohen, a railroad industry baron and attorney who owned an estate with a 70-room mansion on Alameda. A.A. Cohen’s family challenged the canal project more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patty Donald:\u003c/b> He was one of the most powerful people in Alameda at that time because he had started, he had bought a failing rail system in 1876, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>He sued to stop the canal project and lost. And it went forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>By 1889, the excavation was underway. But quickly suffered another setback. A deluge, literally. The winter that started in 1889 was one of the wettest on record. More than 45 inches of rain fell that year. That’s according to a history written by Woody Minor of the Alameda Museum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound effect of typewriter under voice-over\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Voice actor reading:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> Disaster struck on a stormy night in January when Sausal Creek overflowed its banks at Fruitvale Avenue and flooded the ditch and equipment. It took two months to pump out the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Then, they had to deal with public opinion. And perhaps the very first complaints from Alameda residents about commuting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They are digging this canal. And there’s a problem. People complain, well, if you’re gonna have this canal here, how are we going to get home?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The canal dredging was disrupting traffic to one of Alameda’s main entrances, Evanosky says. So, the Park Street Bridge was built first, and then two other bridges came.. in the decade that followed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>As if legal battles, payouts and flooding weren’t enough, the canal project suffered more roadblocks in the 1890s. According to the Alameda Museum’s Woody Minor, funding dried up during an economic depression. Then, the project’s long-time champion at the Army Corps of Engineers retired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then — this one’s big — new research suggested that dredging deeper in Oakland’s harbor would be more effective for boat passage than this idea of flushing sediment out using a dam. While government officials debated next steps, a partially dug unfinished canal was left. A big giant trench.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> So they had to stop. And this is all done, and they had to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Now, this is where the raw sewage comes into the picture. Right around this time, people in Oakland and Alameda started installing residential sewer systems. And the waste was flowing right into Lake Merritt and the Oakland Harbor. By the Alameda Museum’s account, the waterway became a cesspool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound effect of typewriter under voice-over\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Actor:\u003c/b> Fetid water awash with dead fish lapped against the dam and seeped into the ditch, emitting a pervasive stench.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Alameda’s health officer became the biggest crusader for completing the canal. In 1897, he argued that the stench from the incomplete trench had not only become offensive, but the foul water was killing fish and crabs and posing a health hazard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So government officials soon found the money to put a massive steam shovel to work and finish that canal excavation once and for good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a big machine starting up\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>In case you’re wondering if, during this era, anyone ever chimed in about the ecological impacts of ripping through this marshy area?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b> No, no, no, no, no, it’s nothing like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Richard Walker says there wasn’t really an environmental movement at this time. Maybe an oysterman was concerned about declining catches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b> The conservationists at that time would be, I think, entirely obsessed with creating the first state parks. Saving the redwoods. They’re worried about mine debris in the Central Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>By 1902, the dredging was done. And 30 years after the plan was first hatched, the canal filled with water. Alameda was officially an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents in the city of Alameda were ready to celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sounds of a marching band, crowd noise and fireworks\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>In September of 1902, there were days of fireworks, parades, brass bands, carnival acts, fancy diving and a procession of two hundred lighted boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things were different from what was originally envisioned, of course. For one, there was no dam to help flush water out of the estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> In my view, they didn’t build the dam because they were just tired of this whole thing, and a lot of people didn’t think the dam was going to work anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Now, more than a century later, as I walk along the canal with Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky near the Park Street Bridge, the canal water is relatively still. A few boats are docked, but none sail by. This neatly engineered waterway looks like a moat around a castle. It’s mostly used for recreation now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> This wasn’t natural. It looks very not natural.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Right? Right? Right, right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Our question asker, Nate Puckett, has been walking with us, listening to Evanosky this whole time. He looks slightly unsettled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> So it sounds like the reason it’s an island was a failed idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I would say, “The island city, sort of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> Yeah, yeah, the island city by accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Right, right. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Nate clarified later that he found Alameda’s island origin story “surprising.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> You kind of always assume big projects like this are for a very clear and thought-out purpose. And to find that it was kind of an accident or the plan changed so many times is definitely surprising. Especially just, you know, because Alameda is so into being an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The fact that Alameda isn’t naturally an island doesn’t bother Nate Puckett too much now. After all, it’s been that way for a while, and residents here still bond over bridge and tunnel delays. And over a beer at Alameda Island Brewing Co.\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>Island-themed music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That story was produced by Pauline Bartolone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big shout out and thanks to Liam O’Donoghue of the \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayyesterday.com/\">East Bay Yesterday podcast \u003c/a>and UC Davis geographer Javier Arbona for their help on this story. Facts in this story came from Woody Minor of the Alameda Museum and historical documents from the Army Corp of Engineers and the National Park Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still time to vote in our April voting round. Here are your choices:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 1:\u003c/b> I was recently at the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland and saw three different official Oakland signs that read, “No glitter.” I would love to know what happened at the rose garden to warrant so many signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 2:\u003c/b> Yesterday, I walked with a fellow science teacher on the Great Hwy. We commented on the blackish sand, made of iron filings. Where does the iron come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 3:\u003c/b> Who are the de Youngs? I think they have some crazy stories!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Vote for which question you think we should tackle next at baycurious.org. While you’re there, sign up for our monthly newsletter, ask your own question or get lost listening through the Bay Curious archive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our show is made by:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Katrina Schwartz\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>Christopher Beale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Katherine Monahan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Jen Chien: \u003c/b>Jen Chien\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katie Springer: \u003c/b>Katie Springer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cesar Saldana: \u003c/b>Cesar Saldana\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maha Sanad: \u003c/b>Maha Sanad\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Holly Kernan:\u003c/b> Holly Kernan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Crowd:\u003c/b> And the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be back next week.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda has all the sure signs of an island. To get there, you have to use a bridge, a tunnel or a boat. Locals talk about going “on and off island.” And residents, like Nate Puckett, wear Alameda-themed T-shirts that say “Islander.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t leave the island for, like, weeks,” says Puckett, who lives, works and raises two kids in the Bay Area city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, Puckett’s sense of place was thrown off-kilter. He was enjoying an ice cream at a favorite local spot — Tucker’s — when he looked up at a historical map on the wall. It showed Alameda connected to the mainland. That must be wrong, he thought; Alameda is an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the map was not wrong — it was just old. In fact, Alameda is not a natural island. And it almost never became an island at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It kind of felt like we’ve been living a lie,” Puckett says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Puckett asked Bay Curious to find out more about Alameda’s island origin story. The project took nearly 30 years to complete and had enough twists and turns to make anyone dizzy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>When it all began\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 999px\">\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/ohc/\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11983868 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked.jpg\" alt=\"An old map shows what is now Alameda Island as connected to the mainland.\" width=\"999\" height=\"752\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked.jpg 999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked-800x602.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Alameda1877-tweaked-160x120.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A map of Alameda from 1877 shows it as a connected peninsula, not an island. \u003ccite>(Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Center)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the 1870s, Alameda was a big peninsula that jutted out from what is now Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood like an outstretched arm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, things were pretty quiet in that part of the East Bay (it wasn’t Oakland until later). The marshy region was not very populated; the landscape was mostly wide open fields and the estates of a few wealthy families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Oakland’s inner harbor was nearby, and it was quickly becoming a bustling center for maritime commerce. Once the Gold Rush started, more and more ships arrived, bringing in all sorts of goods. And Oakland itself was growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But navigation to the budding port was tricky. Boats had to traverse a wild waterway that hadn’t seen much development yet. Sediment on the harbor’s bottom would shift with the tides, causing sandbars to move in unpredictable patterns that caused problems for navigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The sandbars] were there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, [and then] they’d be over here on Tuesday and Thursday,” Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky says. “It impeded the shipping traffic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11983870\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11983870\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett.jpg\" alt=\"Older man in blue sweater stands next to a younger one in brown.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1276\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/Evanosky-Puckett-1536x1021.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dennis Evanosky (left) with Nate Puckett next to the Alameda canal. The Park Street bridge looms in the background. \u003ccite>(Pauline Bartolone/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oakland was never going to become the shipping destination it wanted to be if the waterways remained so unpredictable and the port so difficult to reach. And Oakland had big development ambitions, says Richard Walker, a \u003ca href=\"https://geography.berkeley.edu/professor-emeritus-richard-walker\">professor emeritus in geography at UC Berkeley\u003c/a> and author of several books about California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sense of competition with San Francisco [was] intense,” Walker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 1800s, Oakland was coming into its own politically and economically, developing its own banks, businesses and shipping companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That grows and grows so that Oakland, by the early 20th century, is really thumbing its nose at San Francisco,” Walker says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to local lobbying, Congressmen worked to bring in millions of federal dollars to pay the Army Corps of Engineers to improve the harbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since shifting sandbars on the bottom was the biggest problem, \u003ca href=\"https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca2600/ca2606/data/ca2606data.pdf\">the initial plan\u003c/a> was to cut through the marshy area of the Alameda peninsula, where it was connected to the mainland, to create a canal. Engineers thought if they built a dam at one end, they could release powerful torrents of water through the canal to flush out built-up sediment in the harbor. That would clear the way for bigger ships to come and go more easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project got the green light in the early 1870s, but over the next three decades, it hit roadblock after roadblock.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Resistance to the project\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">Eleven families owned land where the government wanted to dredge the canal\u003c/a>. Oakland officials offered families $40,000 at the time, more than $1.2 million today. But one person refused — \u003ca href=\"https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/about-6\">A.A. Cohen, a railroad industry baron and attorney\u003c/a> who owned an estate with a 70-room mansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were screwing with his kingdom,” says Patty Donald, Cohen’s great-great-granddaughter and manager of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/history\"> Cohen Bray house\u003c/a>, a historic Victorian building in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. The Cohen family challenged the canal project more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was one of the most powerful people in Alameda at that time because he had bought a failing rail system,” Donald says. “He built it up in two years and created another one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the canal project progressed despite Cohen’s legal challenge, and by 1889 the excavation was underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The setbacks pile up\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Quickly, the canal project suffered another setback — flooding. The winter of 1889 was one of the wettest on record. More than 45 inches of rain fell that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Disaster struck on a stormy night in January when Sausal Creek overflowed its banks at Fruitvale Avenue and flooded the ditch and equipment,” \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">wrote historian Woody Minor in the Alameda Museum newslette\u003c/a>r. “It took two months to pump out the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next, the project’s proponents had to deal with public opinion and perhaps the very first complaints from Alamedans about commuting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People complain, ‘Well if you’re gonna have this canal here, how are we going to get home?’” Evanosky says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dredged canal cut across one of the main thoroughfares, leading to the Alameda peninsula, disrupting traffic \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">for two years\u003c/a>. The Park Street bridge opened in 1891, and Alameda’s two other bridges, at High Street and Fruitvale Avenue, were built the following decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If legal battles, payouts and flooding weren’t enough, there was an economic depression in the 1890s. Funding for the canal project dried up. And then, the project’s long-time champion at the Army Corp of Engineers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Portals/68/docs/History/Engineers%20at%20the%20Golden%20Gate.pdf?ver=2019-10-24-161149-027\">Major George Mendell\u003c/a>, retired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the nail in the coffin for the dam/canal combo plan came from \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">new research suggesting that dredging deeper in Oakland’s harbor would be more effective for boat passage\u003c/a> than this idea of flushing sediment away using a dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While government officials debated the next steps, a partially dug, unfinished giant trench was left.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Fetid water awash with dead fish’\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At this point, 20 years after the project began, raw sewage in the area’s waterways had become a real problem. In the late 1800s, people in Oakland and Alameda started installing residential sewer systems, and the waste flowed right into Lake Merritt and the Oakland Harbor. The unfinished canal became a cesspool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fetid water awash with dead fish lapped against the dam and seeped into the ditch, emitting a pervasive stench,” \u003ca href=\"https://alamedamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AMQ_MAR_2019.pdf\">wrote Minor in his history of the island\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameda’s health officer at the time, Dr. John T. McClean, became the biggest crusader for completing the canal. In a letter to Washington, published by the Oakland Enquirer in 1897, McLean argued that the stench from the incomplete trench had not only become offensive, but the foul water was killing fish and crabs and posed a health hazard. Better water circulation through the canal would help flush away foul substances, he argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, government officials soon found the money to put a massive steam shovel to work ripping through the marsh between Alameda and modern-day Oakland. They finished dredging the canal in 1902, nearly 30 years after the plan was first hatched. Alameda was officially an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was no dam. … but residents celebrated anyway — through days of fireworks, carnival acts and a procession of two hundred lighted boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>A failed idea? \u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The scale and ambition of the Alameda Island project don’t impress geographer Richard Walker. In the grand scheme of things, he says, the project was actually pretty small. There are very few parts of the San Francisco Bay that humans haven’t somehow altered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is California,” Walker says. “California [is] one of the most monumentally re-engineered landscapes on Earth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a century after the project was completed, the water in the neatly engineered tidal canal that separates Alameda from Oakland is relatively still, looking like a moat around a castle. People mostly use it for recreation now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nate Puckett says it doesn’t bother him that Alameda isn’t naturally an island. Residents here still bond over bridge and tunnel delays and over a beer at Alameda Island Brewing Company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nOlivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>One of the best parts about a deep and long-running friendship is you can poke a little fun at each other for your quirks. Like how you’re a diehard fan for a chronically losing sports team or how you put ketchup on everything – gross. For Nate Puckett, his friends rib him about how he never leaves the city of Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> So I work here, I live here, my kids go to school here. I have a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old. So I don’t leave the island for like weeks. And people make fun of me for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Alameda is an island, in case you didn’t know, and that fact is pretty wrapped up in the identity of some people who live there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> I have a T-shirt that says Islander. That’s, like, Alameda themed. There’s Alameda Island Brewing. Like, you talk about whether, you know, you’re on the island or not on the island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But recently, Nate’s sense of place was thrown off-kilter. He was eating ice cream at a local spot – Tuckers. He glanced up at a historical map hanging on the wall. And there, he saw something that shook him to the core. Alameda was connected to what is now mainland Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> It kind of felt like we’ve been all living a lie. It kind of felt like, no, that’s wrong. Alameda is an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But no. The map was not wrong. It was just \u003ci>old\u003c/i>. Alameda is not a natural island. And it almost never became an island at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bay Curious theme music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>On this episode of Bay Curious, we’re going to find out how and \u003ci>why \u003c/i>Alameda was sliced off the mainland. It’s a story with enough twists and turns to make your head spin. I’m Olivia Allen Price. We’ll dive in just after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor break\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Making Alameda into an island took nearly 30 years. And in the end, the original idea for the massive excavation, didn’t quite pan out as planned. KQED Producer Pauline Bartolone tells us all about the bumpy journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Flooding, legal battles, an economic slump and raw sewage. They’re all part of Alameda’s island origin story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It all starts back in the 1870s, Alameda was a big peninsula, jutting out like an outstretched arm from what is now Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, things were pretty quiet where Alameda connected with the mainland. Not many people lived in this marshy region. Think open fields and maybe just a few estates of wealthy families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just to the west was a waterway, the Oakland harbor, that opened up to the San Francisco Bay. And it was becoming a bustling center for maritime commerce. More and more ships were arriving since the Gold Rush, bringing all sorts of goods. But navigation in this waterway was tricky. Sediment on its floor would shift — a lot! — causing all sorts of problems for boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music ends. We hear the sounds of street traffic and outside noises.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> The trouble is, there were sandbars. And there were all kinds of impediments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky took me and our question-asker, Nate Puckett, on a tour along Alameda’s waterfront. He says around what is now the Port of Oakland, the waterway was wild and untouched, with sandbars that would ebb and flow with the tide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They were there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then they’d be over here on Tuesday and Thursday, this place else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> Oh, yeah, haha.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> And it impeded the shipping traffic!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The unpredictable nature of the waterway didn’t work for the shipping industry, which wanted to get more boats into the port. Oakland had big development ambitions, says Richard Walker, a professor emeritus in geography at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker: \u003c/b>Then, the sense of competition with San Francisco is intense, even though there’s a lot of San Francisco investment in Oakland. But you start to create Oakland having its own capitalist class, its own leadership who have banks in Oakland, have businesses, you know, have shipping companies, and they actually have a local interest. And that grows and grows so that Oakland, you know, by the early 20th century, is really thumbing its nose at San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Local Congressmen made deals to bring in millions of federal dollars to improve the harbor. Evanosky says the big idea was to dredge a canal all the way across the north side of Alameda, turning the peninsula into an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>We hear sounds of traffic near the canal\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They planned to build this tidal canal as a scouring channel. What they planned to do was build a dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> The dam would be built on the far east side of Alameda. And then during ebb tide, when the water is naturally flowing out to the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They are going to open that dam, and we’re going to have the water to, I say, “whoosh” through the scouring channel here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> Engineers thought this would harness the natural power of tides to flush sediment out of the Oakland estuary and toward the Bay, learning the passage for boats coming in and out of the narrow waterway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> And these aren’t necessarily big, huge ships. These could be smaller ships, but they need a place to navigate and turn around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone:\u003c/b> So, that was the plan. … in the beginning. The project got the green light in the early 1870s but had a slow start. And over the next three decades, it hit roadblock after roadblock. Early on, the government had to buy out 11 families who would lose part of their estates to the canal. They were offered $40,000 at the time, what is more than $1.2 million today. But one family refused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patty Donald:\u003c/b> They were screwing with his kingdom. If you put it that way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Patty Donald is the great-great-granddaughter of A.A. Cohen, a railroad industry baron and attorney who owned an estate with a 70-room mansion on Alameda. A.A. Cohen’s family challenged the canal project more than once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patty Donald:\u003c/b> He was one of the most powerful people in Alameda at that time because he had started, he had bought a failing rail system in 1876, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>He sued to stop the canal project and lost. And it went forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>By 1889, the excavation was underway. But quickly suffered another setback. A deluge, literally. The winter that started in 1889 was one of the wettest on record. More than 45 inches of rain fell that year. That’s according to a history written by Woody Minor of the Alameda Museum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound effect of typewriter under voice-over\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Voice actor reading:\u003c/i>\u003c/b> Disaster struck on a stormy night in January when Sausal Creek overflowed its banks at Fruitvale Avenue and flooded the ditch and equipment. It took two months to pump out the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Then, they had to deal with public opinion. And perhaps the very first complaints from Alameda residents about commuting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> They are digging this canal. And there’s a problem. People complain, well, if you’re gonna have this canal here, how are we going to get home?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The canal dredging was disrupting traffic to one of Alameda’s main entrances, Evanosky says. So, the Park Street Bridge was built first, and then two other bridges came.. in the decade that followed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>As if legal battles, payouts and flooding weren’t enough, the canal project suffered more roadblocks in the 1890s. According to the Alameda Museum’s Woody Minor, funding dried up during an economic depression. Then, the project’s long-time champion at the Army Corps of Engineers retired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then — this one’s big — new research suggested that dredging deeper in Oakland’s harbor would be more effective for boat passage than this idea of flushing sediment out using a dam. While government officials debated next steps, a partially dug unfinished canal was left. A big giant trench.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> So they had to stop. And this is all done, and they had to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Now, this is where the raw sewage comes into the picture. Right around this time, people in Oakland and Alameda started installing residential sewer systems. And the waste was flowing right into Lake Merritt and the Oakland Harbor. By the Alameda Museum’s account, the waterway became a cesspool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound effect of typewriter under voice-over\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Actor:\u003c/b> Fetid water awash with dead fish lapped against the dam and seeped into the ditch, emitting a pervasive stench.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Alameda’s health officer became the biggest crusader for completing the canal. In 1897, he argued that the stench from the incomplete trench had not only become offensive, but the foul water was killing fish and crabs and posing a health hazard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So government officials soon found the money to put a massive steam shovel to work and finish that canal excavation once and for good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a big machine starting up\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>In case you’re wondering if, during this era, anyone ever chimed in about the ecological impacts of ripping through this marshy area?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b> No, no, no, no, no, it’s nothing like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Richard Walker says there wasn’t really an environmental movement at this time. Maybe an oysterman was concerned about declining catches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Richard Walker:\u003c/b> The conservationists at that time would be, I think, entirely obsessed with creating the first state parks. Saving the redwoods. They’re worried about mine debris in the Central Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>By 1902, the dredging was done. And 30 years after the plan was first hatched, the canal filled with water. Alameda was officially an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents in the city of Alameda were ready to celebrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sounds of a marching band, crowd noise and fireworks\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>In September of 1902, there were days of fireworks, parades, brass bands, carnival acts, fancy diving and a procession of two hundred lighted boats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things were different from what was originally envisioned, of course. For one, there was no dam to help flush water out of the estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> In my view, they didn’t build the dam because they were just tired of this whole thing, and a lot of people didn’t think the dam was going to work anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Now, more than a century later, as I walk along the canal with Alameda historian Dennis Evanosky near the Park Street Bridge, the canal water is relatively still. A few boats are docked, but none sail by. This neatly engineered waterway looks like a moat around a castle. It’s mostly used for recreation now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> This wasn’t natural. It looks very not natural.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Right? Right? Right, right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Our question asker, Nate Puckett, has been walking with us, listening to Evanosky this whole time. He looks slightly unsettled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> So it sounds like the reason it’s an island was a failed idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I would say, “The island city, sort of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> Yeah, yeah, the island city by accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dennis Evanosky:\u003c/b> Right, right. Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>Nate clarified later that he found Alameda’s island origin story “surprising.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nate Puckett:\u003c/b> You kind of always assume big projects like this are for a very clear and thought-out purpose. And to find that it was kind of an accident or the plan changed so many times is definitely surprising. Especially just, you know, because Alameda is so into being an island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pauline Bartolone: \u003c/b>The fact that Alameda isn’t naturally an island doesn’t bother Nate Puckett too much now. After all, it’s been that way for a while, and residents here still bond over bridge and tunnel delays. And over a beer at Alameda Island Brewing Co.\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>Island-themed music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That story was produced by Pauline Bartolone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Big shout out and thanks to Liam O’Donoghue of the \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayyesterday.com/\">East Bay Yesterday podcast \u003c/a>and UC Davis geographer Javier Arbona for their help on this story. Facts in this story came from Woody Minor of the Alameda Museum and historical documents from the Army Corp of Engineers and the National Park Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s still time to vote in our April voting round. Here are your choices:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 1:\u003c/b> I was recently at the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland and saw three different official Oakland signs that read, “No glitter.” I would love to know what happened at the rose garden to warrant so many signs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 2:\u003c/b> Yesterday, I walked with a fellow science teacher on the Great Hwy. We commented on the blackish sand, made of iron filings. Where does the iron come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 3:\u003c/b> Who are the de Youngs? I think they have some crazy stories!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Vote for which question you think we should tackle next at baycurious.org. While you’re there, sign up for our monthly newsletter, ask your own question or get lost listening through the Bay Curious archive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our show is made by:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Katrina Schwartz\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>Christopher Beale\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Katherine Monahan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>and me, Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from:\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Jen Chien: \u003c/b>Jen Chien\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katie Springer: \u003c/b>Katie Springer\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cesar Saldana: \u003c/b>Cesar Saldana\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maha Sanad: \u003c/b>Maha Sanad\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Holly Kernan:\u003c/b> Holly Kernan\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Crowd:\u003c/b> And the whole KQED family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. We’ll be back next week.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "eucalyptus-how-californias-most-hated-tree-took-root-2",
"title": "Eucalyptus: How California's Most Hated Tree Took Root",
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"headTitle": "Eucalyptus: How California’s Most Hated Tree Took Root | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cem>This article was first published in February 1, 2018, and was updated on April 11, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious heard from two hikers wanting to know about the past and future of California’s eucalyptus trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?” asked Christian Wagner, a tech worker who lives in Pleasanton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?” wondered Julie Bergen, an occupational therapist from Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reaching heights of more than 100 feet, the main kind of eucalyptus you’re likely to see here is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. They feature sickle-shaped leaves hanging from high branches, and deciduous bark that is forever peeling from their shaggy trunks. Some people experience the smell of eucalyptus as medicinal; others say the trees just smell like California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647124 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>So how did eucalyptus trees get here?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats coming to California in the 1850s,” explains Jared Farmer, author of \u003ca href=\"https://jaredfarmer.net/books/trees-in-paradise/\">“Trees In Paradise: A California History.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush, Australians were among the throngs flocking to a place where wood was in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the era of wood power,” Farmer says. “Wood was used for almost everything. For energy, of course, but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things where today we use concrete and plastic and steel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides the practical need to plant more trees, settlers who were used to dense forests also felt that the lack of trees in California’s grassy, marshy, scrubby landscape made it feel incomplete. So within a few years, nurseries in San Francisco were selling young eucalyptus grown from seed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees grew remarkably quickly here, even in poor soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on 4 to 6 feet in height and maybe, in their early growth years, a half-inch to an inch in diameter,” says Joe McBride, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the drive to change the landscape and provide firewood, Californians also planted eucalyptus (mainly blue gum) to serve as windbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647125 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on four to six feet in height in a single year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on 4 to 6 feet in height in a single year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, that was the original purpose of what’s now the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world, on campus at Berkeley, says McBride. It was planted around 140 years ago to provide a windbreak for an old cinder running track — to keep its fine ashen gravel from blowing into athletes’ faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees’ success in California owed to a lack of enemies here. Because they were grown from seed, they hadn’t brought along any of the pests or pathogens they contend with back in Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An early 20th century boom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Within a few decades of its arrival, many Californians grew disenchanted with eucalyptus. Blue gum proved terrible for woodworking — the wood often split and cracked, making it a poor choice for railroad ties. The trees also proved thirsty enough to drain nearby wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, ’80s, ’90s, there’s just report after report of disappointment, like ‘these trees are no good,’ ” says Farmer, the historian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But things changed in the early 20th century when U.S. Forest Service officials grew concerned about a looming timber famine. They feared forests in the eastern United States had been overexploited and wouldn’t grow back, and predicted the supply of hardwood would dwindle over the next 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647127 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Investors saw an opportunity: California had a tree capable of growing to full size within that time frame. If hardwood was about to be scarce, they reasoned, such trees could be in high demand and yield sizable returns within a few short years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These people, Farmer says, were not reading blue gum’s lousy reviews in old farm reports. “And even if they did read them, maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck; they were just flipping land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This played out as a speculative frenzy — a bubble. Boosters began selling plantations dense with eucalyptus — hundreds of trees per acre. Farmer writes in his book that claims were made like: “Forests Grown While You Wait,” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” In just a few years, millions of blue gums were planted from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The anticipated timber famine never came to pass. Forests further east proved more resilient than expected, and the need was offset by concrete, steel and imports, like mahogany. Ultimately, the thousands of acres of eucalyptus planted around California were not even worth cutting down. Much of what you see today is a century-old abandoned crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s fire got to do with it?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Eucalyptus trees have lovers and haters in California. A big part of the debate over whether the trees should be allowed to persist here traces back to the East Bay firestorm of 1991, which left 25 people dead and thousands homeless. Vast swaths of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People at the time, I don’t think, associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest,” says CalPoly botanist Jenn Yost. “And then when the fire came through — I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But Eucalyptus trees have supporters too, who argue other plants in their place would also burn. A few years ago, federal funding to cut down trees in the East Bay hills was \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2016/09/19/fema-pulls-funding-for-tree-clearing-in-berkeley-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rescinded\u003c/a>, after \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/07/18/in-berkeley-protesters-strip-naked-to-try-to-save-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protesters\u003c/a> got naked and hugged the eucalyptus trees on campus at Cal. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647123\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11647123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California.\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1180x1770.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-960x1440.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-240x360.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-375x563.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-520x780.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Are they here to stay?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blue gums can’t reproduce on their own just anywhere in California; Yost says they need year-round moisture. They’re able to regenerate in places like California’s coastal fog belt, but elsewhere “there are some plantations that don’t reproduce at all. When you go there, the trees are all in their rows, there’s few saplings anywhere to be seen, and those trees are just getting older.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all non-native plants capable of reproducing on their own do it enough to have an ecological impact, Yost says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum is \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cal-IPC_News_Summer2014-6.pdf#page=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">classified\u003c/a> as a “moderate” invasive, putting it a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/inventory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tier\u003c/a> below such uncharismatic weeds as yellow star-thistle and medusahead. McBride, the retired Berkeley professor, says “although there’s been marginal expansion of some eucalyptus stands, it’s really not well adapted for long-distance dispersal. It hasn’t really spread very much on its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an estimated 40,000 acres of unharvested eucalyptus planted across the state, the trees aren’t easy to get rid of. Slicing down a large blue gum near a building can require a crane, at an expense of thousands of dollars. And keeping them from resprouting can also be its own chore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long term, as the climate changes over the coming decades, it’s possible the aging eucalyptus groves that don’t get enough water to reproduce will begin to die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then again, if the state becomes \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/02/12/new-study-global-warming-will-bring-megadroughts-to-the-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hotter and drier\u003c/a>, it may become the type of place where some Australian species are able to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you see any koala bears?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I wish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[sound of bark crunching underfoot]\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Should we tell people where we are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so we are at the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. Which has gotta be pretty close to the geographic center of San Francisco, would you imagine, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s fair. And we are surrounded by a ton of what look to be ancient eucalyptus trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you’re not familiar with eucalyptus trees, they’re very tall. How tall would you say those are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve seen some today over a hundred feet, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely. And they have this weird bark, where the underpart of the tree is really smooth but their bark on the outside flakes off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It’s deciduous, but it leaves this tan, almost naked-looking trunk behind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And these would not be good climbing trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, most of the branches, like, what’s the lowest branch on that one? It’s like 30 feet up, how are you gonna climb that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing I think a lot of people remark about eucalyptus trees in the smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(inhale, exhale)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people hate it. But a couple people I talked to for this story—they say these trees just smell like California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is pretty weird for a tree from Australia! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Theme music\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious, where we answer your questions about the Bay Area. On this episode, science writer Daniel Potter and I take a closer look at Eucalyptus Trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have lovers—and haters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there are giant stands of them throughout our region. This story first ran in 2018, but your questions about eucalyptus trees have kept on coming! So we thought it was time to freshen up this episode with some new information. We’ll get to it right after this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sponsor Message\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright! Let’s get to this week’s question, shall we? Or should I say \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QUESTIONS\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because we heard from two different listeners on this one…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Christian Wagner. He’s noticed lots of eucalyptus trees as he’s out and about because he likes hiking.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> –as does Julie Bergen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Christian and Julie both wonder about eucalyptus’ past—and its future here. Some people argue the trees are bad for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> plant life—and a fire hazard—and need to go. So. Science writer Daniel Potter!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Howdy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do we begin unraveling this one?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In a forest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Albany Hill outdoor ambi\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Let’s start with one on Albany Hill in the East Bay. You can see it from I-80, near the racetrack. That’s where I talked to this guy…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Jared Farmer, I’m a professor of history at Stony Brook University, and the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trees In Paradise: A California History\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That book includes a solid hundred pages on eucalyptus trees in California, so I asked Farmer how they got here:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats in the 1850s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says the Gold Rush drew people from all over—including from Australia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sea shanty music …“In South Australia I was born, heed away all the way”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they were coming to a place where wood was in short supply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What we think of today as like say native California, Indigenous California, or pre-contact California was far more woody than wooded. Actually it was far more land that was chaparral and savanna and wetland and marshland than timberland…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People settling here wanted to plant trees. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’re used to trees, the California landscape might feel… incomplete without them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then there were the practical concerns, since Californians were quickly downing what trees \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was course just the era of wood power—wood was used for almost everything. For energy of course but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things today we use concrete and plastic and steel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So by the 1850s you could buy young eucalyptus in nurseries in San Francisco. It was grown here from seed, which meant it didn’t bring along any of the usual bugs or pathogens it faces back home. The lack of pests made it easy for these trees to grow really tall, really fast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(Berkeley outdoor ambi)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I would say in an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on four to six feet in height.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Joe McBride, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley. I met him in a towering stand of ancient eucalyptus on campus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These trees are now over 200 feet tall, and the largest ones are approaching six feet in diameter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Near the present-day Life Sciences building there used to be a cinder running track—picture fine ashen gravel. A hundred and forty years ago \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a fabled track meet with Stanford … supposedly the wind was so bad it blew cinder in everyone’s faces and the Stanford coach took his team home—track meet \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> As a result of that, the campus planted this grove of eucalyptus trees as a windbreak, to prevent the wind from blowing the cinders into other athletes eyes in the future. This is the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tell us what that is— blue gum eucalyptus…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So, the genus eucalyptus includes hundreds of species—some more like shrubs than giant trees. A lot were tried out here, but the main one today is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. Side note: apparently even botanists can’t always tell what species they’re looking at without climbing way up to check out the fruit… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for a time these trees were planted on purpose – but many people came to hate them. What changed?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, 80s, 90s, there’s report after report of disappointment, like these trees are no good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Jared Farmer, the historian again. It turns out while our blue gum gets tall real fast, it’s not ideal for woodworking—it splits and cracks and doesn’t hold up if you’re making railroad ties. It also sucks up a lot of water, which is handy if you’re trying to drain swampland, but less handy if your well is nearby. People were kinda over it. Until!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the turn of the 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, we were faced with a crisis in terms of hardwood forest that had been cut over in the eastern United States.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1907, the U.S. Forest Service predicted a looming hardwood famine. People thought there was only about a 15-year supply before we ran out of usable forest. That gave eucalyptus boosters an idea: plant now, and fast-growing blue gums could be big enough to harvest once the famine hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here in the Bay Area, for $100 you could buy an acre of land… planting those trees on 6 by 6 spacing, about 1,200 trees per acre. So they sold lots of these on a speculative basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This became a frenzy—a bubble. Companies suckered investors with claims like \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forests Grown While You Wait” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” Within a few years, thousands of acres were bought up and planted with eucalyptus, from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wait, didn’t we just say blue gum was terrible for woodworking? Why was everyone still planting it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In his book, Farmer gives a few reasons: blue gum was familiar, seeds were everywhere, it could grow in lousy soil—plus a blend of historical ignorance and artful deception.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In part because these people were not reading farm reports from the 1870s and 1880s, and even if they did read them maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck, they were just flipping land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fears of a hardwood famine ultimately proved overblown. Concrete and steel became cheaper, forests further east recovered, and people started making furniture from imported wood like mahogany instead. California’s eucalyptus trees weren’t even worth cutting down—so there they stand. They’re like century-old abandoned crops. Farmer describes their presence here as a beautiful mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That brings us to the second half of this week’s question from Julie and Christian:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To what extent is it sort of here to stay?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I took this question to Jenn Yost, a botanist at CalPoly. While some people see California’s eucalyptus trees as a heinous invasive species and want them gone, Yost was careful to delineate between \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">non-native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">—which these trees definitely are—and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Just because something reproduces a little bit, sometimes it doesn’t do it enough where it has an ecological impact. And as soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While many kinds of eucalyptus have been tried out in California, only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are good enough at reproducing here to be considered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the red gum and the blue gum. And those don’t seem able to reproduce just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anywhere\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In some drier parts of the state, the old plantations aren’t spreading.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> You see blue gums being weedy and really reproducing on their own in areas that have summer moisture, and that’s usually in the form of fog. Or you see them being weedy in places with year-round water, like irrigation ditches or places with seeps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Blue gum is classified as a “moderate invasive.” Compared to other, faster-moving weeds, it’s not California’s most-wanted ravaging the countryside. Yost attributes a lot of the current resentment to the historic 1991 fire in the East Bay hills, where tons of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People at the time I don’t think associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest. And then when the fire came through—I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pushed by 30 mile per hour winds, fire swept down the Oakland Berkeley hills destroying everything in its path.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The East Bay Hills fire was hugely devastating… 25 people died and thousands were left homeless. Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons… The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel…a lot of fuel. Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly. Also: Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Other folks argue different plants in their place would also burn. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is an entrenched debate! A few years ago there was federal fire-prevention funding to cut down trees in those same hills, and people protested. Folks got naked and hugged the blue gums on campus at Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut down dozens of acres of Eucalyptus last year. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yost estimates there’s something like 40 thousand acres of unharvested crops in the state. It’s not hard to extrapolate upwards of ten million trees statewide. Cutting each one down takes time and money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So really the question of whether eucalyptus is going away comes down to who’s backyard it’s in. Can they afford to cut the trees down? Is the political will there to do it? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s where things are. What did our question askers think? Christian and Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was absolutely fascinating. I did not know that the history was even that rich.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to say I love the idea that a lot of what we see was a get-rich-quick scheme. Because that is just a theme that happens so often in America and in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So often to our detriment. Science Writer Daniel Potter, thanks for stomping around so many forests for us this week. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy to do it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A note: A few of the sources quoted in his story have changed jobs since they were first interviewed in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I TONIGHT, April 11 for our talk: Elevating Audio Stories with Sound for the PRX Podcast Garage. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters, or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious.” Grab yours at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcastgarage\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003cem>This article was first published in February 1, 2018, and was updated on April 11, 2024. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on whom you ask, eucalyptus trees are either an icon in California or a fire-prone scourge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious heard from two hikers wanting to know about the past and future of California’s eucalyptus trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?” asked Christian Wagner, a tech worker who lives in Pleasanton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?” wondered Julie Bergen, an occupational therapist from Alameda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reaching heights of more than 100 feet, the main kind of eucalyptus you’re likely to see here is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. They feature sickle-shaped leaves hanging from high branches, and deciduous bark that is forever peeling from their shaggy trunks. Some people experience the smell of eucalyptus as medicinal; others say the trees just smell like California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647124\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647124 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29068_eucalyptusgrove7-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trees are deciduous, shedding their bark every year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>So how did eucalyptus trees get here?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats coming to California in the 1850s,” explains Jared Farmer, author of \u003ca href=\"https://jaredfarmer.net/books/trees-in-paradise/\">“Trees In Paradise: A California History.”\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the Gold Rush, Australians were among the throngs flocking to a place where wood was in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was the era of wood power,” Farmer says. “Wood was used for almost everything. For energy, of course, but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things where today we use concrete and plastic and steel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Besides the practical need to plant more trees, settlers who were used to dense forests also felt that the lack of trees in California’s grassy, marshy, scrubby landscape made it feel incomplete. So within a few years, nurseries in San Francisco were selling young eucalyptus grown from seed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees grew remarkably quickly here, even in poor soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on 4 to 6 feet in height and maybe, in their early growth years, a half-inch to an inch in diameter,” says Joe McBride, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the drive to change the landscape and provide firewood, Californians also planted eucalyptus (mainly blue gum) to serve as windbreaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647125 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on four to six feet in height in a single year.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29071_eucalyptusgrove10-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eucalyptus trees grow fast, sometimes putting on 4 to 6 feet in height in a single year. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In fact, that was the original purpose of what’s now the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world, on campus at Berkeley, says McBride. It was planted around 140 years ago to provide a windbreak for an old cinder running track — to keep its fine ashen gravel from blowing into athletes’ faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trees’ success in California owed to a lack of enemies here. Because they were grown from seed, they hadn’t brought along any of the pests or pathogens they contend with back in Australia.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An early 20th century boom\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Within a few decades of its arrival, many Californians grew disenchanted with eucalyptus. Blue gum proved terrible for woodworking — the wood often split and cracked, making it a poor choice for railroad ties. The trees also proved thirsty enough to drain nearby wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, ’80s, ’90s, there’s just report after report of disappointment, like ‘these trees are no good,’ ” says Farmer, the historian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But things changed in the early 20th century when U.S. Forest Service officials grew concerned about a looming timber famine. They feared forests in the eastern United States had been overexploited and wouldn’t grow back, and predicted the supply of hardwood would dwindle over the next 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647127\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11647127 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29072_eucalyptusgrove11-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bark sheds often, peeling in large strips. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Investors saw an opportunity: California had a tree capable of growing to full size within that time frame. If hardwood was about to be scarce, they reasoned, such trees could be in high demand and yield sizable returns within a few short years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These people, Farmer says, were not reading blue gum’s lousy reviews in old farm reports. “And even if they did read them, maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck; they were just flipping land.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This played out as a speculative frenzy — a bubble. Boosters began selling plantations dense with eucalyptus — hundreds of trees per acre. Farmer writes in his book that claims were made like: “Forests Grown While You Wait,” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” In just a few years, millions of blue gums were planted from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The anticipated timber famine never came to pass. Forests further east proved more resilient than expected, and the need was offset by concrete, steel and imports, like mahogany. Ultimately, the thousands of acres of eucalyptus planted around California were not even worth cutting down. Much of what you see today is a century-old abandoned crop.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What’s fire got to do with it?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Eucalyptus trees have lovers and haters in California. A big part of the debate over whether the trees should be allowed to persist here traces back to the East Bay firestorm of 1991, which left 25 people dead and thousands homeless. Vast swaths of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People at the time, I don’t think, associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest,” says CalPoly botanist Jenn Yost. “And then when the fire came through — I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>But Eucalyptus trees have supporters too, who argue other plants in their place would also burn. A few years ago, federal funding to cut down trees in the East Bay hills was \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2016/09/19/fema-pulls-funding-for-tree-clearing-in-berkeley-hills/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rescinded\u003c/a>, after \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/07/18/in-berkeley-protesters-strip-naked-to-try-to-save-trees/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">protesters\u003c/a> got naked and hugged the eucalyptus trees on campus at Cal. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11647123\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11647123\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California.\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-1180x1770.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-960x1440.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-240x360.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-375x563.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/01/RS29066_eucalyptusgrove2-520x780.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">To some, the scent of eucalyptus trees is simply the scent of California. \u003ccite>(Samantha Shanahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Are they here to stay?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Blue gums can’t reproduce on their own just anywhere in California; Yost says they need year-round moisture. They’re able to regenerate in places like California’s coastal fog belt, but elsewhere “there are some plantations that don’t reproduce at all. When you go there, the trees are all in their rows, there’s few saplings anywhere to be seen, and those trees are just getting older.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not all non-native plants capable of reproducing on their own do it enough to have an ecological impact, Yost says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blue gum is \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Cal-IPC_News_Summer2014-6.pdf#page=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">classified\u003c/a> as a “moderate” invasive, putting it a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/inventory/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tier\u003c/a> below such uncharismatic weeds as yellow star-thistle and medusahead. McBride, the retired Berkeley professor, says “although there’s been marginal expansion of some eucalyptus stands, it’s really not well adapted for long-distance dispersal. It hasn’t really spread very much on its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With an estimated 40,000 acres of unharvested eucalyptus planted across the state, the trees aren’t easy to get rid of. Slicing down a large blue gum near a building can require a crane, at an expense of thousands of dollars. And keeping them from resprouting can also be its own chore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long term, as the climate changes over the coming decades, it’s possible the aging eucalyptus groves that don’t get enough water to reproduce will begin to die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then again, if the state becomes \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/02/12/new-study-global-warming-will-bring-megadroughts-to-the-west/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hotter and drier\u003c/a>, it may become the type of place where some Australian species are able to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do you see any koala bears?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I wish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[sound of bark crunching underfoot]\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Should we tell people where we are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yeah, so we are at the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve. Which has gotta be pretty close to the geographic center of San Francisco, would you imagine, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think that’s fair. And we are surrounded by a ton of what look to be ancient eucalyptus trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you’re not familiar with eucalyptus trees, they’re very tall. How tall would you say those are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We’ve seen some today over a hundred feet, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Definitely. And they have this weird bark, where the underpart of the tree is really smooth but their bark on the outside flakes off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It’s deciduous, but it leaves this tan, almost naked-looking trunk behind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And these would not be good climbing trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Yeah, most of the branches, like, what’s the lowest branch on that one? It’s like 30 feet up, how are you gonna climb that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One thing I think a lot of people remark about eucalyptus trees in the smell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(inhale, exhale)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people hate it. But a couple people I talked to for this story—they say these trees just smell like California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is pretty weird for a tree from Australia! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Theme music\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I’m Olivia Allen-Price, and this is Bay Curious, where we answer your questions about the Bay Area. On this episode, science writer Daniel Potter and I take a closer look at Eucalyptus Trees.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have lovers—and haters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there are giant stands of them throughout our region. This story first ran in 2018, but your questions about eucalyptus trees have kept on coming! So we thought it was time to freshen up this episode with some new information. We’ll get to it right after this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Sponsor Message\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alright! Let’s get to this week’s question, shall we? Or should I say \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QUESTIONS\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because we heard from two different listeners on this one…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> How did all of this eucalyptus get to the Bay Area?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Christian Wagner. He’s noticed lots of eucalyptus trees as he’s out and about because he likes hiking.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> –as does Julie Bergen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that? Are they worth keeping around? Or do we need to get rid of them and replace them with something else?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Christian and Julie both wonder about eucalyptus’ past—and its future here. Some people argue the trees are bad for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> plant life—and a fire hazard—and need to go. So. Science writer Daniel Potter!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Howdy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Where do we begin unraveling this one?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In a forest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Albany Hill outdoor ambi\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Let’s start with one on Albany Hill in the East Bay. You can see it from I-80, near the racetrack. That’s where I talked to this guy…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My name is Jared Farmer, I’m a professor of history at Stony Brook University, and the author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trees In Paradise: A California History\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That book includes a solid hundred pages on eucalyptus trees in California, so I asked Farmer how they got here:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They came here as envelopes of seeds on boats in the 1850s.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He says the Gold Rush drew people from all over—including from Australia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sea shanty music …“In South Australia I was born, heed away all the way”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they were coming to a place where wood was in short supply. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What we think of today as like say native California, Indigenous California, or pre-contact California was far more woody than wooded. Actually it was far more land that was chaparral and savanna and wetland and marshland than timberland…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People settling here wanted to plant trees. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’re used to trees, the California landscape might feel… incomplete without them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And then there were the practical concerns, since Californians were quickly downing what trees \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was course just the era of wood power—wood was used for almost everything. For energy of course but also for building every city, for moving things around, all the things today we use concrete and plastic and steel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So by the 1850s you could buy young eucalyptus in nurseries in San Francisco. It was grown here from seed, which meant it didn’t bring along any of the usual bugs or pathogens it faces back home. The lack of pests made it easy for these trees to grow really tall, really fast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>(Berkeley outdoor ambi)\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I would say in an average rainfall year here in California, these trees probably put on four to six feet in height.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is Joe McBride, professor emeritus of landscape architecture and environmental planning at UC Berkeley. I met him in a towering stand of ancient eucalyptus on campus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These trees are now over 200 feet tall, and the largest ones are approaching six feet in diameter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Near the present-day Life Sciences building there used to be a cinder running track—picture fine ashen gravel. A hundred and forty years ago \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a fabled track meet with Stanford … supposedly the wind was so bad it blew cinder in everyone’s faces and the Stanford coach took his team home—track meet \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">over\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> As a result of that, the campus planted this grove of eucalyptus trees as a windbreak, to prevent the wind from blowing the cinders into other athletes eyes in the future. This is the largest, densest stand of blue gum eucalyptus in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tell us what that is— blue gum eucalyptus…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> So, the genus eucalyptus includes hundreds of species—some more like shrubs than giant trees. A lot were tried out here, but the main one today is Tasmanian blue gum, eucalyptus globulus. Side note: apparently even botanists can’t always tell what species they’re looking at without climbing way up to check out the fruit… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for a time these trees were planted on purpose – but many people came to hate them. What changed?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> If you go back to California farm journals of the 1870s, 80s, 90s, there’s report after report of disappointment, like these trees are no good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s Jared Farmer, the historian again. It turns out while our blue gum gets tall real fast, it’s not ideal for woodworking—it splits and cracks and doesn’t hold up if you’re making railroad ties. It also sucks up a lot of water, which is handy if you’re trying to drain swampland, but less handy if your well is nearby. People were kinda over it. Until!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the turn of the 20\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century, we were faced with a crisis in terms of hardwood forest that had been cut over in the eastern United States.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1907, the U.S. Forest Service predicted a looming hardwood famine. People thought there was only about a 15-year supply before we ran out of usable forest. That gave eucalyptus boosters an idea: plant now, and fast-growing blue gums could be big enough to harvest once the famine hits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joe McBride: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here in the Bay Area, for $100 you could buy an acre of land… planting those trees on 6 by 6 spacing, about 1,200 trees per acre. So they sold lots of these on a speculative basis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This became a frenzy—a bubble. Companies suckered investors with claims like \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003ci>“\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forests Grown While You Wait” and “Absolute Security and Absolute Certainty.” Within a few years, thousands of acres were bought up and planted with eucalyptus, from Southern California up to Mendocino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wait, didn’t we just say blue gum was terrible for woodworking? Why was everyone still planting it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In his book, Farmer gives a few reasons: blue gum was familiar, seeds were everywhere, it could grow in lousy soil—plus a blend of historical ignorance and artful deception.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Farmer:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> In part because these people were not reading farm reports from the 1870s and 1880s, and even if they did read them maybe they wouldn’t care because they just wanted to make a buck, they were just flipping land.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fears of a hardwood famine ultimately proved overblown. Concrete and steel became cheaper, forests further east recovered, and people started making furniture from imported wood like mahogany instead. California’s eucalyptus trees weren’t even worth cutting down—so there they stand. They’re like century-old abandoned crops. Farmer describes their presence here as a beautiful mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That brings us to the second half of this week’s question from Julie and Christian:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know that they’re invasive, so what do we do about that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To what extent is it sort of here to stay?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I took this question to Jenn Yost, a botanist at CalPoly. While some people see California’s eucalyptus trees as a heinous invasive species and want them gone, Yost was careful to delineate between \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">non-native\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">—which these trees definitely are—and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Just because something reproduces a little bit, sometimes it doesn’t do it enough where it has an ecological impact. And as soon as it starts outcompeting native species or fundamentally changing the environment so that native species can’t grow there, we would consider that an invasive species.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While many kinds of eucalyptus have been tried out in California, only \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are good enough at reproducing here to be considered \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">invasive\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the red gum and the blue gum. And those don’t seem able to reproduce just \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anywhere\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In some drier parts of the state, the old plantations aren’t spreading.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> You see blue gums being weedy and really reproducing on their own in areas that have summer moisture, and that’s usually in the form of fog. Or you see them being weedy in places with year-round water, like irrigation ditches or places with seeps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Blue gum is classified as a “moderate invasive.” Compared to other, faster-moving weeds, it’s not California’s most-wanted ravaging the countryside. Yost attributes a lot of the current resentment to the historic 1991 fire in the East Bay hills, where tons of eucalyptus burned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jenn Yost:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> People at the time I don’t think associated that with a planted plantation; it was just a eucalyptus forest. And then when the fire came through—I mean that fire came through so fast and so hot and so many people lost their homes that it was a natural reaction to hate blue gums at that point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pushed by 30 mile per hour winds, fire swept down the Oakland Berkeley hills destroying everything in its path.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The East Bay Hills fire was hugely devastating… 25 people died and thousands were left homeless. Many experts say that eucalyptus trees worsen the fire threat for a few reasons… The bark they shed dries out quickly and creates fuel…a lot of fuel. Once a fire starts, that bark easily catches the wind and can be blown miles away, spreading the fire quickly. Also: Eucalyptus trees are really oily. The oil is actually what gives off that intense fragrance they’re known for. But in a fire, that oil also makes them flammable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Other folks argue different plants in their place would also burn. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is an entrenched debate! A few years ago there was federal fire-prevention funding to cut down trees in those same hills, and people protested. Folks got naked and hugged the blue gums on campus at Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But after a nearly decade-long legal battle, a court gave UC Berkeley the go-ahead to cut down dozens of acres of Eucalyptus last year. Still, it’s a drop in the bucket when you think about how many of these trees we have in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yost estimates there’s something like 40 thousand acres of unharvested crops in the state. It’s not hard to extrapolate upwards of ten million trees statewide. Cutting each one down takes time and money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So really the question of whether eucalyptus is going away comes down to who’s backyard it’s in. Can they afford to cut the trees down? Is the political will there to do it? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that’s where things are. What did our question askers think? Christian and Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Bergen:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That was absolutely fascinating. I did not know that the history was even that rich.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Christian Wagner: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I have to say I love the idea that a lot of what we see was a get-rich-quick scheme. Because that is just a theme that happens so often in America and in California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So often to our detriment. Science Writer Daniel Potter, thanks for stomping around so many forests for us this week. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Potter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Happy to do it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A note: A few of the sources quoted in his story have changed jobs since they were first interviewed in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I TONIGHT, April 11 for our talk: Elevating Audio Stories with Sound for the PRX Podcast Garage. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters, or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious.” Grab yours at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcastgarage\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christian Wagner:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "California's Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here's Why",
"headTitle": "California’s Beloved Abalone Sea Snails Are Struggling. Here’s Why | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beaches of Northern California can be treasure troves for keen-eyed visitors. Surrounded by grass-covered cliffs and dramatic rocky outcrops, walkers can often find seashells, driftwood and other riches on the cool, wet sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Curious listener Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero about 30 years ago, she spent a lot of time hunting for such treasures at the beach. A family doctor by day, beachcombing was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she came across all sorts of treasures, she was looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells. For her, finding one of those beautiful, iridescent mollusks signified a day well spent on a Northern California beach. \u003ca href=\"https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/abalone\">Abalone are mollusks, essentially sea snails\u003c/a> that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she was especially lucky, Page might even find what are called \u003ci>pearls\u003c/i> attached to the outside of an abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The abalone makes this pearl to try to protect the shell,” she said. “And it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the abalone perceives a threat, like a parasite, it surrounds it with nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, to wall off the intruder. Over eight to 10 years, a beautiful iridescent pearl forms on the abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Page found \u003ca href=\"https://www.purepearls.com/pages/pearl-types-abalone-pearls\">one of these rare wild beauties\u003c/a>, she brought it to a jeweler in Pescadero, who turned it into one-of-a-kind necklaces or earrings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over time, Page stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It used to be consistent. At certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells,” she said. “And now I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in over 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Abalone’s long history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung holds a red abalone shell, or a trophy as they are called, at his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. A friend gave the shell to him after his house burned down and he lost all of his belongings in the Tubbs Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Abalone has lived off of California’s coastline for \u003ca href=\"https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/abalone-the-story-of-a-treasured-mollusk-on-the-california-coast\">at least 70 million years\u003c/a>. The ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for Northern Californians, going back to the very first humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away — initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools,” said Ann Vileisis, an environmental historian and author of the book \u003ca href=\"https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/index.php/book/abalone\">\u003ci>Abalone: The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California’s Iconic Shellfish\u003c/i>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes. During ceremonial dances, people wore beautifully elaborate regalia with abalone shells prominently displayed. They not only looked beautiful, Vileisis said, but they also added an incredible clacking sound, which helped to bring the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-19th century, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were familiar with abalone, being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was actually probably among the first California global trades,” Vileisis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S. In 1882, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Exclusion%20Act%20was,Arthur.\">Chinese Exclusion Act\u003c/a>, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. And in1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, allegedly due to concerns over overfishing, though today it is largely seen as a racist law meant to target the growing prosperity of Chinese and Japanese fishermen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans developed a culinary appreciation for California’s iconic sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat,” said Doug Jung, a Santa Rosa resident and former abalone diver. “There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976836\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Man in checked shirt and sun hat stands in front of a truck with a boat loaded in the back.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung stands next to his boat in front of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jung’s favorite way to cook abalone is to tenderize it with a wooden mallet, cover it with flour, then throw it in a wok and deep fry it for about six minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crunchy on the outside, and you can cut it with a fork easily,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond feasting on abalone, diving for it became a way of life for Jung. He learned when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the adventure,” he said. “Every time you go out, when you come back, you say, ‘Cheated death one more time.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone diving is one of the most dangerous kinds of sport fishing. It’s illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So, while holding their breath, divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops, scrape off the abalone without harming them, and then swim back up to the surface. And if that weren’t enough, they also must avoid getting tangled in kelp and encounters with other sea creatures. An octopus almost drowned Jung one time, he said. But despite the risks, for Jung, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was my passion,” he said. “More than anything else, abalone diving was my absolute passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976837\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos of Doug Jung with friends and family during and after abalone dives hang on the wall of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Where are all the abalone?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Just like Lorraine Page, our question-asker, Jung has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for them anymore because they are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2014, a big climate change-driven marine heatwave hit the coast of Northern California. The increased water temperature impacted sea life in all kinds of ways, most notably killing much of the local kelp forest. And since kelp is a staple food source for many sea animals, other oceanic species, like abalone, also died off in large numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the Northern California sea star population was hit hard by a disease called \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/im/swan/ssws.htm\">wasting syndrome\u003c/a>. The warmer marine temperatures made the sea stars more susceptible to the disease and also allowed the disease to proliferate more quickly. Sea stars are predators of sea urchins, so when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins thrived. And purple urchins devour kelp. The booming urchin population ultimately ate through more than 95% of Northern California’s coastal kelp, causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the kelp, millions of red abalone — Northern California’s native species — died of starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out there and dive, it makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens,” Jung said. “This is a horror for us who understood the beauty of what we lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Hope for another abalone species\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Red abalone isn’t the only type of abalone facing potential extinction in California. In fact, all west coast abalone species are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/all-west-coast-abalone-added-endangered-iucns-red-list\">listed\u003c/a> as critically endangered or endangered \u003ca href=\"https://www.iucnredlist.org/\">on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab white abalone captive breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976835\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, poses for a portrait at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The program started over a decade ago when scientists realized that white abalone populations had gotten so low they couldn’t reproduce in the wild anymore. Native to Southern California, the white abalone lives in deep water, but in the 1960s–1970s, as soon as diving technology allowed for deeper water fishing, humans overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have been working to breed white abalone in captivity under controlled conditions in order to release them into the wild and hopefully jump-start reproduction in the wild again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between male and female abalone — are exciting events that only happen once a year. I visited the lab just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976831\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, points to a group of white abalone in a lab at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We had 6.7 million eggs last week,” said Alyssa Frederick, director of the lab’s white abalone captive breeding program. “It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A ton of planning and coordination goes into a spawn, Frederick said. The abalone basically sits in buckets of chemicals, mostly hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, the program releases about 5,000 abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976832\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, holds a white abalone at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Double whammy’ for red abalone\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The white abalone captive breeding program holds promise for the future of that species. As for red abalone, the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In white abalone, you have lots of nice habitat,” said Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “You have kelp, you just don’t have white abalone. But red abalone has the double whammy of [needing] kelp \u003ci>and\u003c/i> red abalone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981674\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abalone in a kelp forest near Mendocino, California, surrounded by dark red algae. \u003ccite>(Lt. John Crofts, NOAA Corps., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there are some programs in place to try to save the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone. For example, since sea urchins are such a scourge on the kelp, state Fish and Wildlife officials have allowed commercial and recreational divers to harvest them in select areas. With fewer sea urchins, Rogers-Bennett said, the kelp might recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the program is still too small to have much impact, Rogers-Bennett said. There are just too many sea urchins. As a lifelong diver and ocean creature enthusiast, she said the work can be discouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To go back to a spot and see a particular rock that I visited at least once a year for 20 years, and to know that that spot is where there used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all, it’s heartbreaking,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there’s certainly no lack of enthusiasm, she said her program needs more financial support if it has a chance of saving the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion,” she said. “I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest and have them come back in these kelp oases. And that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as human-caused climate change continues to change ecosystems, there’s no telling when the next marine heatwave might hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of ocean waves and seagulls]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> When Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero in the ’90s, she spent a lot of time at the beach. It was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>I’m a family doctor on the coast. So I’m busy. But on, on weekends and such, that would be an outlet for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She would comb the beach and explore the tide pools for hours, looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Magical beach music begins]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are mollusks… basically big sea snails, up to 10 inches wide, that live off our northern California coastline. You might recognize their shells, which are iridescent… somehow every color of the rainbow all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorraine sought them out because sometimes, if she was lucky, on those abalone shells she would find an abalone \u003ci>pearl.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>They’re these beautiful little pearls that show up in the shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When Lorraine found one, she’d bring it to a jeweler in Pescadero who would polish it up and turn it into a one-of-a-kind necklace or earrings. But over time, Lorraine has stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>It used to be consistent that certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells, and I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She says she hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>That’s just my simple question is, do we know why there’s not as many abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Bay Curious theme music starts] \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. On today’s episode: what happened to all the abalone? And can we bring them back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme\u003c/i> \u003ci>music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Where did all the abalone go? We sent reporter Dana Cronin to find out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin:\u003c/b> Before I get to answering Lorraine’s question, I think we could all use a little history lesson. Because, oh man, do abalone have a long history here in Northern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>Abalone have lived on the California coast for actually 70 million years, at the very least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Ann Vileisis is an environmental historian who’s authored a whole book on abalone. She says the ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for us Northern Californians… going back to the \u003ci>very first \u003c/i>humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away, initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of a Pomo Indian dance performance featuring clacking abalone shells]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>During ceremonial dances, for example… abalone shells were a part of the regalia. They not only looked beautiful — they also added this incredible clacking sound… bringing the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity… to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-1800s, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were very familiar with abalone being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>That was actually probably one of the, you know, among the first California global trades was in abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S., around when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, which they \u003ci>said\u003c/i> was due to concerns of overfishing. In reality, the ban was part of the larger anti-immigrant sentiment of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans realized how delicious these sea snails are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat. There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Doug Jung. He lives in Santa Rosa and has been abalone diving up and down the Northern California coast since he was in high school — over 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says abalone is naturally buttery and salty… and there’s something about its texture that is totally unique and delicious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>We just pound it with a wooden mallet until it’s soft. And then we throw it in a wok for six minutes and deep fry it and it comes out. It doesn’t suck up all the oil. You have it covered with flour and things. So it’s crunchy on the outside. You can cut it with a fork easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Like, imagine the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth scallop you’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond just eating it… over the years, abalone diving became a way of life for Doug. It was addicting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s the adventure. Every time you go out, you know when you come back, you say ‘Cheated death one more time.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Cheated death one more time because abalone diving is one of the more dangerous sport fishing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because it was illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops — where abalone suction themselves — scrape them off without harming them… and then swim to the surface \u003ci>all in one breath\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention avoiding getting tangled in kelp… or encountering other sea critters. Doug tells me about a time he had a run-in with an octopus:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>He only had two tentacles on me … but with those two tentacles — and I was in my prime in my 30s — I barely got off those two tentacles before coming up. And, I’m thinking if you had three on, I’d be dead\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Doug says, despite the risks, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>I feel very, very fortunate to be able to experience this because this was my passion. More than anything else, more than inventing new technology, more than going fishing, more than hiking. Going up from the into the Sierras. Abalone diving was my absolute passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But just like Lorraine, Doug has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for abalone anymore, because abalone are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand how we got here, we need to rewind the clock about 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Around 2014, there was a big marine heatwave, driven no doubt by climate change. That heat wave impacted Northern California’s coastline in all kinds of ways. Most notably, killing much of the kelp forest off our coast here. Kelp is the main food source for many ocean species — including, you guessed it, abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The marine heat wave also introduced a disease called wasting syndrome… which wiped out much of the sea star population. Like in any ecosystem, when one species is impacted, other species along the food chain are impacted, too. Sea stars prey on sea urchins. So when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins were without a predator… and they \u003ci>thrived. \u003c/i>So much so that they ate through more than 95 percent of our coastal kelp… causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the root issue here. Because without the kelp, millions of red abalone — the kind that’s native to Northern California — have died due to starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s dead. When I go out there and dive up. It makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>While Doug used to dive down and see this lush kelp forest, teeming with fish and snails and sea stars… now, with the kelp mostly gone, it’s almost like a desert landscape, with urchins covering the ocean floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>This is a horror for us. For us who understood the beauty of what we lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>So that’s the sad answer to Lorraine’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, you might be wondering: is there hope for the future of abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Rushing mechanical background sound fade in]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>To answer that question, we’re going to take a tour of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, a facility in Bodega Bay that \u003ci>breeds \u003c/i>abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>When we’re doing spawning, what we do is we’ll take an animal out and we’ll check its gonads.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Alyssa Frederick. She directs the white abalone \u003ci>captive breeding program\u003c/i> here at the lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds up a five-year-old female abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So they have two eyes on stocks and then they also have their like antenna. That’s curled up underneath. One’s curled up underneath, and one’s right here. Yeah. Pretty cute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>We’re in a lab holding room full of tanks housing abalone of all ages and sizes. This little lady, in particular, looks like a giant, oval-shaped snail with a big shell that sits flat across her back. Her two eyes are like tentacles, feeling their way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between the male and female abalone — are a really big deal. They only happen once a year, and I’m visiting just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had 6.7 million eggs last week. It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>A lot of planning and coordination goes into a spawn. The abalone basically sit in buckets of chemicals, namely hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says they set the mood — so to speak — in other ways too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had the lights off for most of it. We did it in the evening, which, like abalone, are more active in the evening. So my line of thinking is that why not stack the odds in our favor and do it then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says it’s an intense process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick:\u003c/b> I mean, the joke, like, I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fade out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>On the day I’m visiting, the little baby abalone are starting to settle, which means they have to flip themselves over and find a place to settle on the bottom of the tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watch them through a microscope:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Wee! Aww. So cute. Dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Now it’s important to note that these are \u003ci>white \u003c/i>abalone. Remember the ones we’ve mostly been talking about so far are red abalone… which are native to \u003ci>Northern\u003c/i> California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White abalone were more common down in southern California. However, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, as soon as diving technology allowed us to fish deeper water species, we overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So we overfished, over 99% of what was out in the wild. It was pretty significant. Like, pretty much all of them.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>White abalone was the first marine invertebrate species to be listed on the Endangered Species Act. There were so few left they weren’t able to reproduce in the wild anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So scientists decided to bring some into captivity, have them reproduce in safe, controlled conditions, and then release them into the wild. They release them when they’re about a year old by placing them in these small cages on the ocean floor and opening up the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to create enough of them out in the wild that they start reproducing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, they’re releasing about five thousand abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Right now we still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But, she says, they’re also an order of magnitude \u003ci>above\u003c/i> where they started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there’s some hope for white abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for our red abalone here in Northern California… the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>I think the red abalone problem is more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. She also works at the Bodega Marine Lab and specializes in \u003ci>red\u003c/i> abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says while white abalone struggle in numbers, they at least have a healthy kelp forest to return to down south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett:\u003c/b> Red abalone has the double whammy of you need kelp. And you need red abalone\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Without kelp, red abalone don’t have a home to return to. And that makes captive breeding — and reintroduction — a lot harder. That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are doing some things, though, to try to bring back the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they’ve identified a few areas off the coast where they allow divers to go out and harvest sea urchins to try to get the kelp to grow back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>So far they haven’t been that successful in terms of bringing back the kelp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>There are also captive breeding programs for sea stars, which aim to reintroduce them back into the ecosystem to keep the urchin at bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s definitely an uphill battle. As someone who has done this work for a long time, Laura says it’s emotionally draining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>To go back to a spot and see a particular rock, that I visited, at least once a year for 20 years. And to know that that spot is where there’s tons used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all. It’s heartbreaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But she’s committed to trying. Trying to get the kelp forest to grow back, trying to recoup the abalone we’ve lost over the last decade. And she hopes the findings from the captive breeding program will help along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion. I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest. Have them come back in these kelp oases. And, that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>If that happens, we could look forward to a future where Lorraine Page, our question-asker, can beach comb again for abalone pearls. And Doug can revive his long lost hobby; diving down, wrestling octopi along the way, in search of his favorite sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out along with the sound of crashing waves]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. Big thanks to Lorraine Page for asking the question.\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>The North Coast Journal provided the sound of abalone clacking during ceremonial dances for our use in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I on April 11 for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/1000/apr-11-600pm-elevating-audio-stories-with-sound-ft-bay-curious\">our talk at the PRX Podcast Garage\u003c/a>. We’re calling it \u003cb>Elevating Audio Stories with Sound\u003c/b> and it’s all about how we make this show with a small but mighty team. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious” that’s all one word. Grab yours at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcastgarage\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The beaches of Northern California can be treasure troves for keen-eyed visitors. Surrounded by grass-covered cliffs and dramatic rocky outcrops, walkers can often find seashells, driftwood and other riches on the cool, wet sand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bay Curious listener Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero about 30 years ago, she spent a lot of time hunting for such treasures at the beach. A family doctor by day, beachcombing was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she came across all sorts of treasures, she was looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells. For her, finding one of those beautiful, iridescent mollusks signified a day well spent on a Northern California beach. \u003ca href=\"https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/abalone\">Abalone are mollusks, essentially sea snails\u003c/a> that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If she was especially lucky, Page might even find what are called \u003ci>pearls\u003c/i> attached to the outside of an abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The abalone makes this pearl to try to protect the shell,” she said. “And it’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the abalone perceives a threat, like a parasite, it surrounds it with nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, to wall off the intruder. Over eight to 10 years, a beautiful iridescent pearl forms on the abalone shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Page found \u003ca href=\"https://www.purepearls.com/pages/pearl-types-abalone-pearls\">one of these rare wild beauties\u003c/a>, she brought it to a jeweler in Pescadero, who turned it into one-of-a-kind necklaces or earrings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over time, Page stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It used to be consistent. At certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells,” she said. “And now I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in over 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Abalone’s long history\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976838\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976838\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-64-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung holds a red abalone shell, or a trophy as they are called, at his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. A friend gave the shell to him after his house burned down and he lost all of his belongings in the Tubbs Fire. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Abalone has lived off of California’s coastline for \u003ca href=\"https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/abalone-the-story-of-a-treasured-mollusk-on-the-california-coast\">at least 70 million years\u003c/a>. The ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for Northern Californians, going back to the very first humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away — initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools,” said Ann Vileisis, an environmental historian and author of the book \u003ca href=\"https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/index.php/book/abalone\">\u003ci>Abalone: The Remarkable History and Uncertain Future of California’s Iconic Shellfish\u003c/i>.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes. During ceremonial dances, people wore beautifully elaborate regalia with abalone shells prominently displayed. They not only looked beautiful, Vileisis said, but they also added an incredible clacking sound, which helped to bring the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-19th century, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were familiar with abalone, being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was actually probably among the first California global trades,” Vileisis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S. In 1882, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20Exclusion%20Act%20was,Arthur.\">Chinese Exclusion Act\u003c/a>, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S. And in1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, allegedly due to concerns over overfishing, though today it is largely seen as a racist law meant to target the growing prosperity of Chinese and Japanese fishermen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans developed a culinary appreciation for California’s iconic sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat,” said Doug Jung, a Santa Rosa resident and former abalone diver. “There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976836\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Man in checked shirt and sun hat stands in front of a truck with a boat loaded in the back.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-61-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Jung stands next to his boat in front of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jung’s favorite way to cook abalone is to tenderize it with a wooden mallet, cover it with flour, then throw it in a wok and deep fry it for about six minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s crunchy on the outside, and you can cut it with a fork easily,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond feasting on abalone, diving for it became a way of life for Jung. He learned when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the adventure,” he said. “Every time you go out, when you come back, you say, ‘Cheated death one more time.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone diving is one of the most dangerous kinds of sport fishing. It’s illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So, while holding their breath, divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops, scrape off the abalone without harming them, and then swim back up to the surface. And if that weren’t enough, they also must avoid getting tangled in kelp and encounters with other sea creatures. An octopus almost drowned Jung one time, he said. But despite the risks, for Jung, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was my passion,” he said. “More than anything else, abalone diving was my absolute passion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976837\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-63-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photos of Doug Jung with friends and family during and after abalone dives hang on the wall of his home in Santa Rosa on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Where are all the abalone?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Just like Lorraine Page, our question-asker, Jung has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for them anymore because they are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Around 2014, a big climate change-driven marine heatwave hit the coast of Northern California. The increased water temperature impacted sea life in all kinds of ways, most notably killing much of the local kelp forest. And since kelp is a staple food source for many sea animals, other oceanic species, like abalone, also died off in large numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, the Northern California sea star population was hit hard by a disease called \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/im/swan/ssws.htm\">wasting syndrome\u003c/a>. The warmer marine temperatures made the sea stars more susceptible to the disease and also allowed the disease to proliferate more quickly. Sea stars are predators of sea urchins, so when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins thrived. And purple urchins devour kelp. The booming urchin population ultimately ate through more than 95% of Northern California’s coastal kelp, causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Without the kelp, millions of red abalone — Northern California’s native species — died of starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I go out there and dive, it makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens,” Jung said. “This is a horror for us who understood the beauty of what we lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Hope for another abalone species\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Red abalone isn’t the only type of abalone facing potential extinction in California. In fact, all west coast abalone species are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/all-west-coast-abalone-added-endangered-iucns-red-list\">listed\u003c/a> as critically endangered or endangered \u003ca href=\"https://www.iucnredlist.org/\">on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab white abalone captive breeding program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976835\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-47-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, poses for a portrait at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The program started over a decade ago when scientists realized that white abalone populations had gotten so low they couldn’t reproduce in the wild anymore. Native to Southern California, the white abalone lives in deep water, but in the 1960s–1970s, as soon as diving technology allowed for deeper water fishing, humans overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have been working to breed white abalone in captivity under controlled conditions in order to release them into the wild and hopefully jump-start reproduction in the wild again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between male and female abalone — are exciting events that only happen once a year. I visited the lab just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976831\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976831\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-10-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, points to a group of white abalone in a lab at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We had 6.7 million eggs last week,” said Alyssa Frederick, director of the lab’s white abalone captive breeding program. “It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A ton of planning and coordination goes into a spawn, Frederick said. The abalone basically sits in buckets of chemicals, mostly hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, the program releases about 5,000 abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species,” Frederick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976832\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240220-ABALONE-25-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alyssa Frederick, director of the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program, holds a white abalone at the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay on Feb. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>‘Double whammy’ for red abalone\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The white abalone captive breeding program holds promise for the future of that species. As for red abalone, the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In white abalone, you have lots of nice habitat,” said Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “You have kelp, you just don’t have white abalone. But red abalone has the double whammy of [needing] kelp \u003ci>and\u003c/i> red abalone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11981674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11981674\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/04/red-abalone-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abalone in a kelp forest near Mendocino, California, surrounded by dark red algae. \u003ccite>(Lt. John Crofts, NOAA Corps., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But there are some programs in place to try to save the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone. For example, since sea urchins are such a scourge on the kelp, state Fish and Wildlife officials have allowed commercial and recreational divers to harvest them in select areas. With fewer sea urchins, Rogers-Bennett said, the kelp might recover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the program is still too small to have much impact, Rogers-Bennett said. There are just too many sea urchins. As a lifelong diver and ocean creature enthusiast, she said the work can be discouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To go back to a spot and see a particular rock that I visited at least once a year for 20 years, and to know that that spot is where there used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all, it’s heartbreaking,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there’s certainly no lack of enthusiasm, she said her program needs more financial support if it has a chance of saving the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion,” she said. “I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest and have them come back in these kelp oases. And that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as human-caused climate change continues to change ecosystems, there’s no telling when the next marine heatwave might hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of ocean waves and seagulls]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> When Lorraine Page moved to Pescadero in the ’90s, she spent a lot of time at the beach. It was her way to unwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>I’m a family doctor on the coast. So I’m busy. But on, on weekends and such, that would be an outlet for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She would comb the beach and explore the tide pools for hours, looking for one thing in particular: abalone shells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Magical beach music begins]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abalone are mollusks… basically big sea snails, up to 10 inches wide, that live off our northern California coastline. You might recognize their shells, which are iridescent… somehow every color of the rainbow all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorraine sought them out because sometimes, if she was lucky, on those abalone shells she would find an abalone \u003ci>pearl.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>They’re these beautiful little pearls that show up in the shell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When Lorraine found one, she’d bring it to a jeweler in Pescadero who would polish it up and turn it into a one-of-a-kind necklace or earrings. But over time, Lorraine has stopped finding them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>It used to be consistent that certain beaches in Pescadero, you’d find abalone shells, and I just can’t. They’re not around anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>She says she hasn’t found a whole abalone shell in more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lorraine Page: \u003c/b>That’s just my simple question is, do we know why there’s not as many abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Bay Curious theme music starts] \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m Olivia Allen Price and you’re listening to Bay Curious. On today’s episode: what happened to all the abalone? And can we bring them back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme\u003c/i> \u003ci>music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Where did all the abalone go? We sent reporter Dana Cronin to find out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin:\u003c/b> Before I get to answering Lorraine’s question, I think we could all use a little history lesson. Because, oh man, do abalone have a long history here in Northern California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>Abalone have lived on the California coast for actually 70 million years, at the very least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Ann Vileisis is an environmental historian who’s authored a whole book on abalone. She says the ancient mollusk has always held deep meaning for us Northern Californians… going back to the \u003ci>very first \u003c/i>humans who lived here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>When humans came to California, they started using abalone right away, initially for food, but soon thereafter also for tools\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Indigenous people also used abalone shells for decoration and ceremonial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of a Pomo Indian dance performance featuring clacking abalone shells]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>During ceremonial dances, for example… abalone shells were a part of the regalia. They not only looked beautiful — they also added this incredible clacking sound… bringing the dance to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when European settlers arrived on the West Coast, they started treating abalone like a commodity… to be traded and sold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the late 18th century, Spanish settlers traded abalone shells for sea otter fur as part of the Pacific fur trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, in the mid-to-late-1800s, Chinese and Japanese immigrants — who were very familiar with abalone being from the other side of the Pacific Ocean — began shipping dried abalone and shells back to China and Japan, where they were used in soups and congees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ann Vileisis: \u003c/b>That was actually probably one of the, you know, among the first California global trades was in abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This was also a time of extreme racism and xenophobia in the U.S., around when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1913, the California legislature passed a ban on exporting abalone, which they \u003ci>said\u003c/i> was due to concerns of overfishing. In reality, the ban was part of the larger anti-immigrant sentiment of the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But abalone fishing didn’t stop. And in fact, over time, more and more Americans realized how delicious these sea snails are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It is absolutely the best thing you can ever eat. There was nothing I’d rather eat than abalone. I mean, it was just so good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Doug Jung. He lives in Santa Rosa and has been abalone diving up and down the Northern California coast since he was in high school — over 50 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says abalone is naturally buttery and salty… and there’s something about its texture that is totally unique and delicious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>We just pound it with a wooden mallet until it’s soft. And then we throw it in a wok for six minutes and deep fry it and it comes out. It doesn’t suck up all the oil. You have it covered with flour and things. So it’s crunchy on the outside. You can cut it with a fork easily.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Like, imagine the most tender, melt-in-your-mouth scallop you’ve ever had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But beyond just eating it… over the years, abalone diving became a way of life for Doug. It was addicting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s the adventure. Every time you go out, you know when you come back, you say ‘Cheated death one more time.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Cheated death one more time because abalone diving is one of the more dangerous sport fishing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because it was illegal to use scuba gear to dive for abalone due to concerns of overfishing. So divers have to dive down to the ocean floor or navigate rocky outcrops — where abalone suction themselves — scrape them off without harming them… and then swim to the surface \u003ci>all in one breath\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not to mention avoiding getting tangled in kelp… or encountering other sea critters. Doug tells me about a time he had a run-in with an octopus:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>He only had two tentacles on me … but with those two tentacles — and I was in my prime in my 30s — I barely got off those two tentacles before coming up. And, I’m thinking if you had three on, I’d be dead\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Doug says, despite the risks, diving for abalone was totally worth it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>I feel very, very fortunate to be able to experience this because this was my passion. More than anything else, more than inventing new technology, more than going fishing, more than hiking. Going up from the into the Sierras. Abalone diving was my absolute passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But just like Lorraine, Doug has also noticed the decline in abalone. In fact, he’s not even allowed to dive for abalone anymore, because abalone are now considered critically endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand how we got here, we need to rewind the clock about 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Around 2014, there was a big marine heatwave, driven no doubt by climate change. That heat wave impacted Northern California’s coastline in all kinds of ways. Most notably, killing much of the kelp forest off our coast here. Kelp is the main food source for many ocean species — including, you guessed it, abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The marine heat wave also introduced a disease called wasting syndrome… which wiped out much of the sea star population. Like in any ecosystem, when one species is impacted, other species along the food chain are impacted, too. Sea stars prey on sea urchins. So when the sea stars started to decline, purple urchins were without a predator… and they \u003ci>thrived. \u003c/i>So much so that they ate through more than 95 percent of our coastal kelp… causing a near-total kelp forest collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the root issue here. Because without the kelp, millions of red abalone — the kind that’s native to Northern California — have died due to starvation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>It’s dead. When I go out there and dive up. It makes me cry because the only thing I see is urchin barrens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>While Doug used to dive down and see this lush kelp forest, teeming with fish and snails and sea stars… now, with the kelp mostly gone, it’s almost like a desert landscape, with urchins covering the ocean floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Doug Jung: \u003c/b>This is a horror for us. For us who understood the beauty of what we lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>So that’s the sad answer to Lorraine’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, you might be wondering: is there hope for the future of abalone?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Rushing mechanical background sound fade in]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>To answer that question, we’re going to take a tour of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, a facility in Bodega Bay that \u003ci>breeds \u003c/i>abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>When we’re doing spawning, what we do is we’ll take an animal out and we’ll check its gonads.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Alyssa Frederick. She directs the white abalone \u003ci>captive breeding program\u003c/i> here at the lab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She holds up a five-year-old female abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So they have two eyes on stocks and then they also have their like antenna. That’s curled up underneath. One’s curled up underneath, and one’s right here. Yeah. Pretty cute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>We’re in a lab holding room full of tanks housing abalone of all ages and sizes. This little lady, in particular, looks like a giant, oval-shaped snail with a big shell that sits flat across her back. Her two eyes are like tentacles, feeling their way around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spawns — where they induce breeding between the male and female abalone — are a really big deal. They only happen once a year, and I’m visiting just days after the most recent one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had 6.7 million eggs last week. It was the largest spawn we’ve had in the program since 2019. I was really excited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>A lot of planning and coordination goes into a spawn. The abalone basically sit in buckets of chemicals, namely hydrogen peroxide, which causes a cascade of hormones in their bodies that tell them it’s time to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says they set the mood — so to speak — in other ways too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>We had the lights off for most of it. We did it in the evening, which, like abalone, are more active in the evening. So my line of thinking is that why not stack the odds in our favor and do it then?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Abalone are broadcast spawners, meaning they release their eggs and sperm into the water column and form larvae from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alyssa says it’s an intense process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick:\u003c/b> I mean, the joke, like, I was literally pacing my living room like someone waiting in a maternity ward for someone to give birth\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fade out]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>On the day I’m visiting, the little baby abalone are starting to settle, which means they have to flip themselves over and find a place to settle on the bottom of the tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We watch them through a microscope:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Wee! Aww. So cute. Dancing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Now it’s important to note that these are \u003ci>white \u003c/i>abalone. Remember the ones we’ve mostly been talking about so far are red abalone… which are native to \u003ci>Northern\u003c/i> California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White abalone were more common down in southern California. However, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, as soon as diving technology allowed us to fish deeper water species, we overfished them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>So we overfished, over 99% of what was out in the wild. It was pretty significant. Like, pretty much all of them.\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>White abalone was the first marine invertebrate species to be listed on the Endangered Species Act. There were so few left they weren’t able to reproduce in the wild anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So scientists decided to bring some into captivity, have them reproduce in safe, controlled conditions, and then release them into the wild. They release them when they’re about a year old by placing them in these small cages on the ocean floor and opening up the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal is to create enough of them out in the wild that they start reproducing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, they’re releasing about five thousand abalone into the wild per year. In order to save the species, models show they need to be releasing twice that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alyssa Frederick: \u003c/b>Right now we still are an order of magnitude below what’s required to save the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But, she says, they’re also an order of magnitude \u003ci>above\u003c/i> where they started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music starts]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So there’s some hope for white abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for our red abalone here in Northern California… the situation is more complicated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>I think the red abalone problem is more difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>This is Laura Rogers-Bennett, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. She also works at the Bodega Marine Lab and specializes in \u003ci>red\u003c/i> abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says while white abalone struggle in numbers, they at least have a healthy kelp forest to return to down south.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett:\u003c/b> Red abalone has the double whammy of you need kelp. And you need red abalone\u003ci>.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>Without kelp, red abalone don’t have a home to return to. And that makes captive breeding — and reintroduction — a lot harder. That’s part of the reason there is no captive breeding program for red abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are doing some things, though, to try to bring back the kelp and, ultimately, the abalone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they’ve identified a few areas off the coast where they allow divers to go out and harvest sea urchins to try to get the kelp to grow back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>So far they haven’t been that successful in terms of bringing back the kelp.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>There are also captive breeding programs for sea stars, which aim to reintroduce them back into the ecosystem to keep the urchin at bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s definitely an uphill battle. As someone who has done this work for a long time, Laura says it’s emotionally draining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>To go back to a spot and see a particular rock, that I visited, at least once a year for 20 years. And to know that that spot is where there’s tons used to be tons of red abalone and to see it just covered with urchin and no algae at all. It’s heartbreaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>But she’s committed to trying. Trying to get the kelp forest to grow back, trying to recoup the abalone we’ve lost over the last decade. And she hopes the findings from the captive breeding program will help along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laura Rogers-Bennett: \u003c/b>Obviously, in red abalone, we have the passion. I think there’s a chance that we can create some of these pockets of kelp forest. Have them come back in these kelp oases. And, that will be the start of restoration areas for the whole coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Cronin: \u003c/b>If that happens, we could look forward to a future where Lorraine Page, our question-asker, can beach comb again for abalone pearls. And Doug can revive his long lost hobby; diving down, wrestling octopi along the way, in search of his favorite sea snail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music fades out along with the sound of crashing waves]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That story was reported by KQED’s Dana Cronin. Big thanks to Lorraine Page for asking the question.\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>The North Coast Journal provided the sound of abalone clacking during ceremonial dances for our use in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever wondered what all goes into making a Bay Curious story sound the way it does … join producer Katrina Schwartz and I on April 11 for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/1000/apr-11-600pm-elevating-audio-stories-with-sound-ft-bay-curious\">our talk at the PRX Podcast Garage\u003c/a>. We’re calling it \u003cb>Elevating Audio Stories with Sound\u003c/b> and it’s all about how we make this show with a small but mighty team. We’ll be talking through how we use music, sound effects, archival material, narration and more to bring the Bay Curious podcast to life. Join us in person at KQED’s Headquarters or on the livestream. Tickets are free if you use the code “baycurious” that’s all one word. Grab yours at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/podcastgarage\">kqed.org/podcastgarage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "why-dont-more-bay-area-kids-ride-school-buses",
"title": "Why Doesn't California Have More School Buses?",
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"headTitle": "Why Doesn’t California Have More School Buses? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weekday mornings are unquestionably hectic for many of us. We’re up early and out the door, headed towards some kind of commute to work. However, adding the responsibility of getting children through that morning routine and to school on time can feel like the day’s biggest accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jules Winters first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from the East Coast, she worried that in that morning rush, she’d get stuck behind a school bus stopping every couple of blocks to pick up kids. She knew from experience that it could make her late to work. But, soon, that concern turned to puzzlement because it never happened. Instead, she noticed a lot of traffic jams around schools at drop-off and pick-up times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now, I’m not going anywhere near [a] school because of all the parents dropping off their kids,” she says. “Why aren’t there buses taking students to and from school?” she wondered. “Why is that now the obligation of the family? And how do different families accommodate that? Is that equitable?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>It goes back to Proposition 13\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Winters isn’t wrong. California has fewer school buses than in other parts of the country. A survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration found that nationally, almost 40% of school-aged kids ride a school bus. In California, that number is only 8%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many questions related to school funding and services, the answer to Winters’ question has roots in the passage of Proposition 13, a constitutional amendment that limited how much a homeowner’s property taxes could increase each year. Property taxes were the primary way school districts funded themselves back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The restriction of those sources of revenue in 1978 caused more or less a budget crisis,” says Sam Speroni, a doctoral researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and a researcher at San Jose State’s Mineta Transportation Institute. “So in 1982, the state froze its home-to-school transportation budget with only cost of living adjustments, and that stayed in place until 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus.jpg\" alt=\"A line of kids boards a yellow school bus.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Across the country, about 40% of school-aged kids ride a school bus. In California, that number is closer to 8%. \u003ccite>( Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the intervening years, California’s population has grown, including school-aged children, but the transportation budget has largely stayed the same. That has forced districts to shoulder more of the costs associated with providing school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That leads local districts into really difficult decisions about, ‘do we continue providing buses or do we eliminate in-school-house services that are also super important?’” Speroni says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Districts are federally mandated to provide buses to certain groups of students, like those who have transportation, as part of their Individualized Education Program (IEP). However, California does not require school districts to offer school transportation to general education students. As the demands on the school budgets have grown, many districts have chosen not to prioritize school bus funding, which is costly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Buses to serve equity goals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Low-income families and families of color often travel the furthest to get to school and have the least resources at their disposal. In recognition of that, some Bay Area districts fund a small number of buses to help meet their equity goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley Unified School District assigns elementary students to zones and then places them in schools with an eye toward socioeconomic diversity. The district uses census data on family income and parental education to help it do this. If the student lives further than 1 1/2 miles from their assigned school, the district offers school buses to help them get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 1,600 students ride the bus in Berkeley, about 18% of the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4087301904&light=true\" width=\"100%\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley’s commitment to school buses stems from a legacy of bussing for integration that goes back to 1968. Berkeley was the first sizable city with a large minority population to voluntarily start a two-way bussing program to both bring white students down from the hills and to take Black students up to the hill schools as a way to racially integrate the population of all its schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco also offers some school buses to general education students. It runs 35 buses for K–8 students each day, with routes that largely start on the southeast side of the city and bring kids to schools further north and west. The district says these routes help provide crucial access to language programs and offer more choices to families living in the southeast. The routes serve 46 schools and about 2,000 kids. Families sign up for the school bus when they enroll their children in elementary school. The routes and applications for spots on the bus are assigned at the educational placement center.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Partnering with public transit agencies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While many school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area do not provide dedicated school buses for general education students, they often partner with public transportation systems to help families get kids to school. In San Francisco, school-aged kids ride for free on Muni. SamTrans, serving schools in San Mateo County, offers free rides to low-income students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some school districts and public transportation agencies even work together to align schedules. For example, AC Transit, in the East Bay, offers Supplementary Service to School routes designed to align with school bell schedules and to cover the attendance boundaries of certain schools. AC Transit also discounts fares based on income requirements, as does Clipper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these efforts, according to the Federal Highway Administration survey, only about 2% of California students take public buses to school. In contrast, 68% get a ride in a private vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Calls for school transportation reform\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Recently, there have been calls to reform California’s school transportation system. A 2014 Legislative Analyst’s Office report highlighted how underfunded the program had become and suggested several ways to reform it. In 2022, Newsom pledged state money to fund 60% of the cost of funding school transportation, the largest increase in years. The governor also allocated $1.5 billion in one-time funds to help districts transition to electric school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Nancy Skinner proposed a bill in 2022 that would provide universal access to school transportation for TK–12 public school students in the state. She argued that reliable transportation to school could reduce chronic absenteeism and improve school performance, especially for low-income students whose families more often don’t have cars. An analysis of the Skinner bill found it would cost the state $1.4 billion, which may be why, despite support in the Senate, it didn’t advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high cost of providing school buses, paired with the many demands on a school district’s budget, make changes to school transportation policy a tricky proposition going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Whenever Bay Curious listener Jules Winters thinks about her childhood growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she thinks of her school bus driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>My bus driver was Ted for like, most of my life. This one time, there was a snowstorm that just hit, like out of nowhere, and it was like full-on blizzard. And I remember, like, we had been at school maybe only into like 9:00, and they were like, we got to get you out of here, like, now. And so they called all the buses. And we got on the bus with Ted, and we got stuck in a huge snowdrift on the way home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Jules doesn’t remember being scared in that moment, even though it was probably really stressful for Ted. She felt safe. She knew Ted would get her home, he always did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I have really good memories of taking the bus. Like, I met my best friend on the bus. She had moved into town over the summer and was just starting in a new school, and it’s kind of like I was the first person that she met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So when she moved to California as an adult, Jules quickly noticed there weren’t many school buses moving kids around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I think it’s ironic that initially, I was concerned about traffic, with like being stuck behind a bus, because that was what I was used to on the East Coast. Now, it’s like, I’m not going anywhere near that school because of all the parents dropping off their kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I live a half block from a school, and trust me, some of the worst traffic jams happen around school start and end times. Since Jules has such positive memories of riding the bus as a student, it got her wondering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>Why aren’t there buses taking students to and from school?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And that led to a whole bunch more questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>Why is that now the obligation of the family and how do different families accommodate that? Is that equitable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today on Bay Curious, we’re taking a closer look at how kids get to school, why it matters, and if it’s true that there aren’t as many school buses in California as there are in other places. I’m Olivia Alan Price. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sponsor message]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today, we’re digging into why you don’t see as many school buses around the Bay area as you might in other parts of the country. And to help answer some of Jules’ questions, we have Bay curious producer and longtime education reporter Katrina Schwartz. Welcome, Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Hi, Olivia. I was actually quite excited that we got an education question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Yeah, let’s get right into it. Is Jules right? Are there actually fewer school buses here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes, Jules is correct. She’s actually put her finger on a real discrepancy. So there’s this survey that the Federal Highway Administration does across the country. And when you look nationwide, almost 40% of school-age kids ride a school bus. And that number has been fairly consistent across many decades. But here in California, only 8% of kids ride a school bus to school, which is the lowest in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Wow. 8%. You know, I wouldn’t have thought it was that low. Although I guess if I think about it, I don’t tend to see school buses very often when I’m out on the roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Right, because they really aren’t that common. In fact, I had a fair amount of trouble finding any kid that rode a school bus until I started asking around in Berkeley, where it is a little bit more common. So, I met Liz Christiano at her house in Berkeley. She actually volunteered to let me come over at this very stressful time in the morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano:\u003c/b> Good morning. Welcome, Katrina\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Getting ready time in order to meet up with her son James and his friend Eli, as they were having breakfast and getting ready to go to the school bus. They are both fourth graders at John Muir Elementary, and they remember the first time that they rode the school bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It was kind of strange because, like, I didn’t know anybody, but then, like, I got used to it really quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>It wasn’t really scary. I guess it felt weird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And they were not entirely positive about the experience but kind of resigned to it. I would say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It was pretty loud. There’s like so many people talking at once. And then the bus driver, like, frequently stops or has to use the radio to tell people to be quiet or to stop using foul language on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>OK. That tracks. I remember not loving the bus all the time as a student, but I know that my mom appreciated that it meant she didn’t have to drive me to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes, I think buses are really more for parents than they are for kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>My morning would be ridiculously stressful if I had to take him, even though we’re not that far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Liz Christiano says she’s not even sure how she’d manage her morning without the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>The getting up and going. Having to manage all of the logistics of getting everywhere and everything on time is just… it’s a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>She has another child who’s younger, who goes to a preschool in Oakland. That school starts at the same time as James’ school. So if she was having to take them both to school, it would be this real logistical hurdle to juggle it all. And so she was just very thankful for the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>Having your kid picked up and taken somewhere and then delivered home the amount of life and cognitive space that you get back, I love it. I really love it. The mornings are so much better because of the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>James and Eli normally walk to the school bus together without their parents. It’s about a two-block walk. But this morning, because I was there, a bunch of kids met up and we all walked to the school bus together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>We’re about to have to go to the bus. Do you want to interview Mia or Micah? they’re also on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>So, Micah, how do you feel about the bus?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Micah: \u003c/b>I like that parents still get to work as much as they want. And it’s just fun to ride in the bus with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>What about you, Mia? How do you feel about it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>I really like it. Because even if you’re late to the bus, all you have to do is run, and he’ll wait for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>He waits for you!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>Yeah, and he laughs.\u003ci> (giggles)\u003c/i> This is my first year. So I was very nervous on the first day. I wasn’t expecting that my stop would be the first stop on the whole thing and that it would take like 20 minutes to get to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>Are you annoyed that it takes so long or is it OK?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>It’s OK because then I get to talk to my friends when they get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>So, is this the bus stop?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It’s a very sad bus stop because it has no sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And, pretty soon the bus pulled up. The kids all kind of gave their moms hugs and then got on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>What we’re trying to say, is the bus is amazing!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>No, we are not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Off they went.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I mean, it sounds like it’s working out really well for them. Why aren’t there more buses around California if it’s helping out this family so much?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah. So this all goes back to Proposition 13, which is a constitutional amendment that passed in 1978. And it really limits how much property taxes can increase for homeowners, which is a big deal for school districts because, before Prop. 13, property taxes were the main way that school districts funded themselves. Since then, that burden has shifted more to the state because of Prop. 13.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>The restriction of those sources of revenue in 1978 caused more or less a budget crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I talked with Sam Speroni, who is a doctoral student at UCLA studying school transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>So, in 1982, the state froze its home-to-school transportation budget with only cost-of-living adjustments, and that stayed in place until 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>So over the past 40-plus years, California’s population has grown, though. So there’s just this one pot of money that really hasn’t changed that much, and more kids and more need. So, if districts want to offer school buses, they have to kind of shoulder more of the burden to pay for that. And that means tradeoffs. You know, you can’t pay for everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>That leads local districts into really difficult decisions about, do we continue providing busses or do we eliminate in school house services that are also super important?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Reading support specialist for example, or an extra social worker?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>And politically, it’s difficult to justify the elimination of teaching staff if school buses can be reduced first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Obviously, you said it’s an expensive prospect for school districts to think about doing this, but Berkeley is making a bigger investment than others to keep buses going. Why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>So it goes back to the history of bussing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>The method is bussing, in itself one of the most controversial issues before boards of education throughout this country. But Berkeley is out to prove that it works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>You know, in the 1960s and 70s, school buses were one of the primary ways that districts tried to integrate their schools racially. There was a lot of segregation before that, and school bussing was a way of basically moving kids around, mixing them up, taking them to different neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>And with the use of 25 buses, 3,500 elementary children began to commute to and from White and Negro neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Trish McDermott is the senior communications director for Berkeley Unified, and she told me this history is fundamental to how Berkeley operates today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>In 1968, we integrated our elementary schools, and that really made Berkeley the first larger city in the country with a large minority enrollment to voluntarily desegregate schools. And we did that with our buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And Trish says even in progressive Berkeley, bussing for integration wasn’t always popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>Big, crowded school board meetings, a lot of pushback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They eventually got it done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>It’s change that we’re very proud of, and it really is the legacy of our transportation department as it exists today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>Oxford is typical of a school in Berkeley’s white middle-class neighborhood. Last year, Oxford student body had one Negro member. Today, 40% of the 325 students are black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>It’s a progressive district, and they care about creating schools that are diverse and integrated. So, what they do is assign elementary school students to a zone, and then they look at the census for income data and parental education data to assign students to different schools. And then they use school buses to help kids and families get to the school that they were assigned to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Berkeley is doing this, but how does that stack up against all the other hundreds of school districts in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Well, it’s important to know that there’s no law in California that requires school districts to provide buses to general education students. So every district kind of looks at its budget and their student population and decides, you know, can we afford to do this or not? Is this where we want to spend our limited resources? You always have to make tradeoffs. So in a rural district, for example, they often prioritize school transportation because the distances are longer. There maybe aren’t any public transportation options for students, and the schools are more spread out. So bussing is sort of essential to getting kids to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I will say that every district does need to provide some school busses, because they are federally mandated to transport certain groups of students to school. So if a student has transportation as part of their Individualized Education program, for example, maybe they have a disability or something like that, then they get transportation to school, and that is federally mandated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One district that actually does provide school buses for general education kids is San Francisco, which might actually surprise some families in San Francisco because a lot of families have to drive their kids to school or walk them to school or find some other way to get there. But there are a few school buses, 35 buses that the district runs. And again, it is also for equity reasons, largely the routes start on the south side of the city where there’s often more kids. It tends to be like lower-income neighborhoods, and the routes take kids to the west side of the city, and that’s to provide access to language programs, other schools, and basically makes sure that they have access to the rest of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>There must be families who would use bussing if it came to them, and it just doesn’t. What do those people do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Well, you know, some kids walk to school if they’re close enough, some kids bike to school. But about two-thirds of California students get a ride to school in a private vehicle. So obviously that’s not great for the environment. And it’s a big ask of families. I mean, plenty of people don’t have cars, so some districts try to help out by partnering with public transportation systems. So in San Francisco, for example, school kids can ride Muni for free. And the district says that every school is served by at least one Muni bus line or train line. In the East Bay. It’s AC transit, and they actually reach out to the school districts around them and try to align their bus schedules to the school. Will start and end times to make it easier for kids to ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene:\u003c/b> I’m here at De Anza High School in Richmond. And it’s interesting because, like, all the AC transit buses are waiting here, like school buses. They’re pulled up off the street in this little pick-up zone. And there’s a bunch of kids who came out of school who are waiting around for the buses to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sound of fare machine beeping]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 20 minutes after school let out…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene:\u003c/b> So all the kids are, like, crowded around the door waiting to get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of bus honking and accelerating]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The bus takes off. And it takes a route through the school boundary zone so that all these kids can get back home. But if there was another patron on the street who wanted to ride, they could easily get on the bus anywhere along the route.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I mean, I imagine this, you know, really boils down to sort of a problem on the equity front, right? Because, OK, even if parents are able to take their kids to school because of their schedule, that still is going to mean they’re going to have to have a car that’s operational. That requires a certain amount of money. Be up to date on insurance. Or I mean, the other thing to consider is like, that’s going to limit the shift work that perhaps parents could do if they’re going to have to know that they need to be available to take their kid to school at a certain time. That’s a constraint that, especially if you’re living, you know, on a low-income salary, that’s just one more thing that you’re sort of juggling in an already pretty complicated life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah, I think it is an equity issue, although it’s a little bit unclear how big of one it is. I mean, obviously any family that has more flexibility and more mobility is going to have more choices. And all the things that you laid out are true. But there are a lot of other factors that make schools unequal in California. So it’s hard to say how much of a difference a school bus would really make to the whole big picture. One thing that Sam Speroni says, though, is that if California as a state wants to even the playing field for families by offering choices about what schools a family might send their kid to, transportation really needs to be part of that conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>Ultimately, you don’t have school choice if you don’t have transportation to those choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And then the other problem that Sam Speroni brought up — this is a national problem — there’s a huge school bus driver shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>With the buses we already have. We’re struggling to staff them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The school bus drivers have to have a special commercial driver’s license, which is also what you use for trucking or other types of delivery jobs. And often those jobs pay more. So in this current economy, it’s very hard to retain your school bus drivers. And we’re seeing that even in places that have much more robust bussing, they’re having a lot of trouble staffing their buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Now, given everything you’ve learned, are there likely to be any changes to how many school buses California schools offer?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I mean, a number of people have flagged this as a problem. It’s an equity issue, as we already talked about. So, State Sen. Nancy Skinner actually introduced a bill in 2022 that would have provided universal school transportation for California public school students. And she did that because she argued that providing dedicated funds for school transportation would actually improve attendance. It would help with chronic absenteeism, and especially for low income students, it could also improve outcomes at school, too. But this bill was estimated to cost the state $1.4 billion. And so it had some support in the state Senate, but ultimately it didn’t advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>$1.4 billion is a lot of money. But still, you know, as someone who rode a school bus, I do have a little bit of nostalgia for those big yellow buses. And I find it a little sad that, you know, I have a 3-year-old, and he isn’t likely to ride a bus in California and have that special relationship with his bus driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah, I mean, I definitely got the sense from our question-asker, Jules, that she finds it a bit sad. I mean, she really had a positive experience on the bus and felt like it really created community. And not having them around here in the Bay area seems like just another way that the social fabric is fraying a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I guess I’ve always imagined that buses are like a library or a firefighter station or a police station like it’s this community service that is part of the inlaid structure of what makes it a community or what makes it a school for that community. So it just boggles my mind that it’s not part of any of these communities here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Well, Katrina Schwartz, thank you so much for bringing the story to us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>You’re welcome. I’m sorry I couldn’t get more cute kids on buses. Apparently, there’s a lot of liability issues with getting on school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The woes of education reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes. It’s hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price \u003c/b>Big thanks to Jules Winters for asking this week’s question. If you’ve got a question you’d like Bay Curious to take on, head to baycurious.org and fill out our form at the top of the page. While you’re there, vote in our March voting round. Here are the options under consideration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 1 \u003c/b>Have you noticed all the motels along Lombard Street? I have. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wondered why. Can you find out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 2 \u003c/b>At the San Francisco Opera House, there’s a chandelier high above the orchestra level. How do they change the light bulbs when they burn out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 3 \u003c/b>San Mateo County has an official shared housing program, which helps people find housing in someone else’s home. How well is it working?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price \u003c/b>Again, that’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.baycurious.org\">baycurious.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weekday mornings are unquestionably hectic for many of us. We’re up early and out the door, headed towards some kind of commute to work. However, adding the responsibility of getting children through that morning routine and to school on time can feel like the day’s biggest accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Jules Winters first moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from the East Coast, she worried that in that morning rush, she’d get stuck behind a school bus stopping every couple of blocks to pick up kids. She knew from experience that it could make her late to work. But, soon, that concern turned to puzzlement because it never happened. Instead, she noticed a lot of traffic jams around schools at drop-off and pick-up times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Now, I’m not going anywhere near [a] school because of all the parents dropping off their kids,” she says. “Why aren’t there buses taking students to and from school?” she wondered. “Why is that now the obligation of the family? And how do different families accommodate that? Is that equitable?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>It goes back to Proposition 13\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Winters isn’t wrong. California has fewer school buses than in other parts of the country. A survey conducted by the Federal Highway Administration found that nationally, almost 40% of school-aged kids ride a school bus. In California, that number is only 8%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many questions related to school funding and services, the answer to Winters’ question has roots in the passage of Proposition 13, a constitutional amendment that limited how much a homeowner’s property taxes could increase each year. Property taxes were the primary way school districts funded themselves back then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The restriction of those sources of revenue in 1978 caused more or less a budget crisis,” says Sam Speroni, a doctoral researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and a researcher at San Jose State’s Mineta Transportation Institute. “So in 1982, the state froze its home-to-school transportation budget with only cost of living adjustments, and that stayed in place until 2022.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus.jpg\" alt=\"A line of kids boards a yellow school bus.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/kids-ride-school-bus-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Across the country, about 40% of school-aged kids ride a school bus. In California, that number is closer to 8%. \u003ccite>( Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the intervening years, California’s population has grown, including school-aged children, but the transportation budget has largely stayed the same. That has forced districts to shoulder more of the costs associated with providing school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That leads local districts into really difficult decisions about, ‘do we continue providing buses or do we eliminate in-school-house services that are also super important?’” Speroni says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Districts are federally mandated to provide buses to certain groups of students, like those who have transportation, as part of their Individualized Education Program (IEP). However, California does not require school districts to offer school transportation to general education students. As the demands on the school budgets have grown, many districts have chosen not to prioritize school bus funding, which is costly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Buses to serve equity goals\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Low-income families and families of color often travel the furthest to get to school and have the least resources at their disposal. In recognition of that, some Bay Area districts fund a small number of buses to help meet their equity goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley Unified School District assigns elementary students to zones and then places them in schools with an eye toward socioeconomic diversity. The district uses census data on family income and parental education to help it do this. If the student lives further than 1 1/2 miles from their assigned school, the district offers school buses to help them get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 1,600 students ride the bus in Berkeley, about 18% of the school community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4087301904&light=true\" width=\"100%\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berkeley’s commitment to school buses stems from a legacy of bussing for integration that goes back to 1968. Berkeley was the first sizable city with a large minority population to voluntarily start a two-way bussing program to both bring white students down from the hills and to take Black students up to the hill schools as a way to racially integrate the population of all its schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco also offers some school buses to general education students. It runs 35 buses for K–8 students each day, with routes that largely start on the southeast side of the city and bring kids to schools further north and west. The district says these routes help provide crucial access to language programs and offer more choices to families living in the southeast. The routes serve 46 schools and about 2,000 kids. Families sign up for the school bus when they enroll their children in elementary school. The routes and applications for spots on the bus are assigned at the educational placement center.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Partnering with public transit agencies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While many school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area do not provide dedicated school buses for general education students, they often partner with public transportation systems to help families get kids to school. In San Francisco, school-aged kids ride for free on Muni. SamTrans, serving schools in San Mateo County, offers free rides to low-income students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some school districts and public transportation agencies even work together to align schedules. For example, AC Transit, in the East Bay, offers Supplementary Service to School routes designed to align with school bell schedules and to cover the attendance boundaries of certain schools. AC Transit also discounts fares based on income requirements, as does Clipper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these efforts, according to the Federal Highway Administration survey, only about 2% of California students take public buses to school. In contrast, 68% get a ride in a private vehicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Calls for school transportation reform\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Recently, there have been calls to reform California’s school transportation system. A 2014 Legislative Analyst’s Office report highlighted how underfunded the program had become and suggested several ways to reform it. In 2022, Newsom pledged state money to fund 60% of the cost of funding school transportation, the largest increase in years. The governor also allocated $1.5 billion in one-time funds to help districts transition to electric school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Nancy Skinner proposed a bill in 2022 that would provide universal access to school transportation for TK–12 public school students in the state. She argued that reliable transportation to school could reduce chronic absenteeism and improve school performance, especially for low-income students whose families more often don’t have cars. An analysis of the Skinner bill found it would cost the state $1.4 billion, which may be why, despite support in the Senate, it didn’t advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high cost of providing school buses, paired with the many demands on a school district’s budget, make changes to school transportation policy a tricky proposition going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Whenever Bay Curious listener Jules Winters thinks about her childhood growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she thinks of her school bus driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>My bus driver was Ted for like, most of my life. This one time, there was a snowstorm that just hit, like out of nowhere, and it was like full-on blizzard. And I remember, like, we had been at school maybe only into like 9:00, and they were like, we got to get you out of here, like, now. And so they called all the buses. And we got on the bus with Ted, and we got stuck in a huge snowdrift on the way home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Jules doesn’t remember being scared in that moment, even though it was probably really stressful for Ted. She felt safe. She knew Ted would get her home, he always did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I have really good memories of taking the bus. Like, I met my best friend on the bus. She had moved into town over the summer and was just starting in a new school, and it’s kind of like I was the first person that she met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So when she moved to California as an adult, Jules quickly noticed there weren’t many school buses moving kids around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I think it’s ironic that initially, I was concerned about traffic, with like being stuck behind a bus, because that was what I was used to on the East Coast. Now, it’s like, I’m not going anywhere near that school because of all the parents dropping off their kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I live a half block from a school, and trust me, some of the worst traffic jams happen around school start and end times. Since Jules has such positive memories of riding the bus as a student, it got her wondering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>Why aren’t there buses taking students to and from school?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And that led to a whole bunch more questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>Why is that now the obligation of the family and how do different families accommodate that? Is that equitable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today on Bay Curious, we’re taking a closer look at how kids get to school, why it matters, and if it’s true that there aren’t as many school buses in California as there are in other places. I’m Olivia Alan Price. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sponsor message]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today, we’re digging into why you don’t see as many school buses around the Bay area as you might in other parts of the country. And to help answer some of Jules’ questions, we have Bay curious producer and longtime education reporter Katrina Schwartz. Welcome, Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Hi, Olivia. I was actually quite excited that we got an education question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Yeah, let’s get right into it. Is Jules right? Are there actually fewer school buses here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes, Jules is correct. She’s actually put her finger on a real discrepancy. So there’s this survey that the Federal Highway Administration does across the country. And when you look nationwide, almost 40% of school-age kids ride a school bus. And that number has been fairly consistent across many decades. But here in California, only 8% of kids ride a school bus to school, which is the lowest in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Wow. 8%. You know, I wouldn’t have thought it was that low. Although I guess if I think about it, I don’t tend to see school buses very often when I’m out on the roads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Right, because they really aren’t that common. In fact, I had a fair amount of trouble finding any kid that rode a school bus until I started asking around in Berkeley, where it is a little bit more common. So, I met Liz Christiano at her house in Berkeley. She actually volunteered to let me come over at this very stressful time in the morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano:\u003c/b> Good morning. Welcome, Katrina\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Getting ready time in order to meet up with her son James and his friend Eli, as they were having breakfast and getting ready to go to the school bus. They are both fourth graders at John Muir Elementary, and they remember the first time that they rode the school bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It was kind of strange because, like, I didn’t know anybody, but then, like, I got used to it really quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>It wasn’t really scary. I guess it felt weird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And they were not entirely positive about the experience but kind of resigned to it. I would say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It was pretty loud. There’s like so many people talking at once. And then the bus driver, like, frequently stops or has to use the radio to tell people to be quiet or to stop using foul language on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>OK. That tracks. I remember not loving the bus all the time as a student, but I know that my mom appreciated that it meant she didn’t have to drive me to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes, I think buses are really more for parents than they are for kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>My morning would be ridiculously stressful if I had to take him, even though we’re not that far away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Liz Christiano says she’s not even sure how she’d manage her morning without the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>The getting up and going. Having to manage all of the logistics of getting everywhere and everything on time is just… it’s a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>She has another child who’s younger, who goes to a preschool in Oakland. That school starts at the same time as James’ school. So if she was having to take them both to school, it would be this real logistical hurdle to juggle it all. And so she was just very thankful for the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Christiano: \u003c/b>Having your kid picked up and taken somewhere and then delivered home the amount of life and cognitive space that you get back, I love it. I really love it. The mornings are so much better because of the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>James and Eli normally walk to the school bus together without their parents. It’s about a two-block walk. But this morning, because I was there, a bunch of kids met up and we all walked to the school bus together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>We’re about to have to go to the bus. Do you want to interview Mia or Micah? they’re also on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>So, Micah, how do you feel about the bus?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Micah: \u003c/b>I like that parents still get to work as much as they want. And it’s just fun to ride in the bus with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>What about you, Mia? How do you feel about it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>I really like it. Because even if you’re late to the bus, all you have to do is run, and he’ll wait for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>He waits for you!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>Yeah, and he laughs.\u003ci> (giggles)\u003c/i> This is my first year. So I was very nervous on the first day. I wasn’t expecting that my stop would be the first stop on the whole thing and that it would take like 20 minutes to get to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>Are you annoyed that it takes so long or is it OK?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>It’s OK because then I get to talk to my friends when they get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene: \u003c/b>So, is this the bus stop?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eli: \u003c/b>It’s a very sad bus stop because it has no sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And, pretty soon the bus pulled up. The kids all kind of gave their moms hugs and then got on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mia: \u003c/b>What we’re trying to say, is the bus is amazing!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>James: \u003c/b>No, we are not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Off they went.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I mean, it sounds like it’s working out really well for them. Why aren’t there more buses around California if it’s helping out this family so much?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah. So this all goes back to Proposition 13, which is a constitutional amendment that passed in 1978. And it really limits how much property taxes can increase for homeowners, which is a big deal for school districts because, before Prop. 13, property taxes were the main way that school districts funded themselves. Since then, that burden has shifted more to the state because of Prop. 13.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>The restriction of those sources of revenue in 1978 caused more or less a budget crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I talked with Sam Speroni, who is a doctoral student at UCLA studying school transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>So, in 1982, the state froze its home-to-school transportation budget with only cost-of-living adjustments, and that stayed in place until 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>So over the past 40-plus years, California’s population has grown, though. So there’s just this one pot of money that really hasn’t changed that much, and more kids and more need. So, if districts want to offer school buses, they have to kind of shoulder more of the burden to pay for that. And that means tradeoffs. You know, you can’t pay for everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>That leads local districts into really difficult decisions about, do we continue providing busses or do we eliminate in school house services that are also super important?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Reading support specialist for example, or an extra social worker?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>And politically, it’s difficult to justify the elimination of teaching staff if school buses can be reduced first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Obviously, you said it’s an expensive prospect for school districts to think about doing this, but Berkeley is making a bigger investment than others to keep buses going. Why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>So it goes back to the history of bussing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>The method is bussing, in itself one of the most controversial issues before boards of education throughout this country. But Berkeley is out to prove that it works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>You know, in the 1960s and 70s, school buses were one of the primary ways that districts tried to integrate their schools racially. There was a lot of segregation before that, and school bussing was a way of basically moving kids around, mixing them up, taking them to different neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>And with the use of 25 buses, 3,500 elementary children began to commute to and from White and Negro neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Trish McDermott is the senior communications director for Berkeley Unified, and she told me this history is fundamental to how Berkeley operates today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>In 1968, we integrated our elementary schools, and that really made Berkeley the first larger city in the country with a large minority enrollment to voluntarily desegregate schools. And we did that with our buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And Trish says even in progressive Berkeley, bussing for integration wasn’t always popular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>Big, crowded school board meetings, a lot of pushback.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They eventually got it done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Trish McDermott: \u003c/b>It’s change that we’re very proud of, and it really is the legacy of our transportation department as it exists today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival tape: \u003c/b>Oxford is typical of a school in Berkeley’s white middle-class neighborhood. Last year, Oxford student body had one Negro member. Today, 40% of the 325 students are black.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>It’s a progressive district, and they care about creating schools that are diverse and integrated. So, what they do is assign elementary school students to a zone, and then they look at the census for income data and parental education data to assign students to different schools. And then they use school buses to help kids and families get to the school that they were assigned to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Berkeley is doing this, but how does that stack up against all the other hundreds of school districts in California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Well, it’s important to know that there’s no law in California that requires school districts to provide buses to general education students. So every district kind of looks at its budget and their student population and decides, you know, can we afford to do this or not? Is this where we want to spend our limited resources? You always have to make tradeoffs. So in a rural district, for example, they often prioritize school transportation because the distances are longer. There maybe aren’t any public transportation options for students, and the schools are more spread out. So bussing is sort of essential to getting kids to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I will say that every district does need to provide some school busses, because they are federally mandated to transport certain groups of students to school. So if a student has transportation as part of their Individualized Education program, for example, maybe they have a disability or something like that, then they get transportation to school, and that is federally mandated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One district that actually does provide school buses for general education kids is San Francisco, which might actually surprise some families in San Francisco because a lot of families have to drive their kids to school or walk them to school or find some other way to get there. But there are a few school buses, 35 buses that the district runs. And again, it is also for equity reasons, largely the routes start on the south side of the city where there’s often more kids. It tends to be like lower-income neighborhoods, and the routes take kids to the west side of the city, and that’s to provide access to language programs, other schools, and basically makes sure that they have access to the rest of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>There must be families who would use bussing if it came to them, and it just doesn’t. What do those people do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Well, you know, some kids walk to school if they’re close enough, some kids bike to school. But about two-thirds of California students get a ride to school in a private vehicle. So obviously that’s not great for the environment. And it’s a big ask of families. I mean, plenty of people don’t have cars, so some districts try to help out by partnering with public transportation systems. So in San Francisco, for example, school kids can ride Muni for free. And the district says that every school is served by at least one Muni bus line or train line. In the East Bay. It’s AC transit, and they actually reach out to the school districts around them and try to align their bus schedules to the school. Will start and end times to make it easier for kids to ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene:\u003c/b> I’m here at De Anza High School in Richmond. And it’s interesting because, like, all the AC transit buses are waiting here, like school buses. They’re pulled up off the street in this little pick-up zone. And there’s a bunch of kids who came out of school who are waiting around for the buses to leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sound of fare machine beeping]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 20 minutes after school let out…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz in scene:\u003c/b> So all the kids are, like, crowded around the door waiting to get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sounds of bus honking and accelerating]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The bus takes off. And it takes a route through the school boundary zone so that all these kids can get back home. But if there was another patron on the street who wanted to ride, they could easily get on the bus anywhere along the route.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I mean, I imagine this, you know, really boils down to sort of a problem on the equity front, right? Because, OK, even if parents are able to take their kids to school because of their schedule, that still is going to mean they’re going to have to have a car that’s operational. That requires a certain amount of money. Be up to date on insurance. Or I mean, the other thing to consider is like, that’s going to limit the shift work that perhaps parents could do if they’re going to have to know that they need to be available to take their kid to school at a certain time. That’s a constraint that, especially if you’re living, you know, on a low-income salary, that’s just one more thing that you’re sort of juggling in an already pretty complicated life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah, I think it is an equity issue, although it’s a little bit unclear how big of one it is. I mean, obviously any family that has more flexibility and more mobility is going to have more choices. And all the things that you laid out are true. But there are a lot of other factors that make schools unequal in California. So it’s hard to say how much of a difference a school bus would really make to the whole big picture. One thing that Sam Speroni says, though, is that if California as a state wants to even the playing field for families by offering choices about what schools a family might send their kid to, transportation really needs to be part of that conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>Ultimately, you don’t have school choice if you don’t have transportation to those choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And then the other problem that Sam Speroni brought up — this is a national problem — there’s a huge school bus driver shortage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sam Speroni: \u003c/b>With the buses we already have. We’re struggling to staff them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The school bus drivers have to have a special commercial driver’s license, which is also what you use for trucking or other types of delivery jobs. And often those jobs pay more. So in this current economy, it’s very hard to retain your school bus drivers. And we’re seeing that even in places that have much more robust bussing, they’re having a lot of trouble staffing their buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Now, given everything you’ve learned, are there likely to be any changes to how many school buses California schools offer?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I mean, a number of people have flagged this as a problem. It’s an equity issue, as we already talked about. So, State Sen. Nancy Skinner actually introduced a bill in 2022 that would have provided universal school transportation for California public school students. And she did that because she argued that providing dedicated funds for school transportation would actually improve attendance. It would help with chronic absenteeism, and especially for low income students, it could also improve outcomes at school, too. But this bill was estimated to cost the state $1.4 billion. And so it had some support in the state Senate, but ultimately it didn’t advance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>$1.4 billion is a lot of money. But still, you know, as someone who rode a school bus, I do have a little bit of nostalgia for those big yellow buses. And I find it a little sad that, you know, I have a 3-year-old, and he isn’t likely to ride a bus in California and have that special relationship with his bus driver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yeah, I mean, I definitely got the sense from our question-asker, Jules, that she finds it a bit sad. I mean, she really had a positive experience on the bus and felt like it really created community. And not having them around here in the Bay area seems like just another way that the social fabric is fraying a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jules Winters: \u003c/b>I guess I’ve always imagined that buses are like a library or a firefighter station or a police station like it’s this community service that is part of the inlaid structure of what makes it a community or what makes it a school for that community. So it just boggles my mind that it’s not part of any of these communities here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Well, Katrina Schwartz, thank you so much for bringing the story to us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>You’re welcome. I’m sorry I couldn’t get more cute kids on buses. Apparently, there’s a lot of liability issues with getting on school buses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The woes of education reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Yes. It’s hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price \u003c/b>Big thanks to Jules Winters for asking this week’s question. If you’ve got a question you’d like Bay Curious to take on, head to baycurious.org and fill out our form at the top of the page. While you’re there, vote in our March voting round. Here are the options under consideration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 1 \u003c/b>Have you noticed all the motels along Lombard Street? I have. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wondered why. Can you find out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 2 \u003c/b>At the San Francisco Opera House, there’s a chandelier high above the orchestra level. How do they change the light bulbs when they burn out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice 3 \u003c/b>San Mateo County has an official shared housing program, which helps people find housing in someone else’s home. How well is it working?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price \u003c/b>Again, that’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.baycurious.org\">baycurious.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "how-sfs-drag-queens-shaped-the-city-and-the-world",
"title": "How SF's Drag Queens Shaped the City (and the World)",
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"headTitle": "How SF’s Drag Queens Shaped the City (and the World) | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag as an art form dates back centuries, but as shows like MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race have grown a worldwide following, drag has become more visible than ever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The show’s namesake and host, RuPaul, arguably the most famous drag queen in the world, is now the most decorated television host in Emmy history. Not Johnny Carson, not Barbara Walters … RuPaul.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is also a heated debate coursing through statehouses and on some media programs about whether or not drag queens are appropriate entertainment for adults and children alike. Florida, Montana, Tennessee and Texas all have laws that, though unenforceable due to a federal court order, would ban drag performances.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In San Francisco, this debate over drag is long settled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Drag is as crucial to the identity of this city as the cable car,” said Peaches Christ, a San Francisco drag performer, director and provocateur for the last three decades. “Straight people have wigs in this town!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag has been breaking ground and creating a community for San Franciscans for almost a century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>But how did it get that way?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag has been an active part of the entertainment scene in San Francisco since the 1930s.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Early drag in San Francisco was presented in a way that was safe for straight audiences,” Christ said. “It traditionally has meant a cis man who dons women’s clothes, for entertainment purposes, usually pretty fabulous and flamboyant.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finocchio’s Club was an institution for 60 years in the North Beach neighborhood and featured “female illusion.” This was light-hearted fun. None of the heavy stuff and definitely no politics. But that was about to shift.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980250\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980250\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo featuring eight drag queens posing on a multi-tiered stage, wearing gowns.\" width=\"600\" height=\"489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG-160x130.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Finocchio’s nightclub was known for its “female impersonators” who entertained patrons nightly. This 1958 photo shows the cast of the floor show. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At The Black Cat Club, another North Beach hot spot, Jose Sarria was a cocktail waiter turned drag queen who sang operatic arias. During Sarria’s performances, she started to encourage patrons to stop living double lives and to come out of the closet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1961, Sarria ran for a San Francisco Board of Supervisors seat. He lost, but his campaign was an early demonstration of the power of the gay voting bloc that would eventually elect Harvey Milk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980181\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1493px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980181\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a white full body leotard and a pink tutu and white angel wings and a crown. They are gesturing toward the camera, as if to take flight.\" width=\"1493\" height=\"991\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068.jpg 1493w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1493px) 100vw, 1493px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jose Sarria, a.k.a. The Widow Norton, dances as the Sugar Plum Fairy during the Dance-Along Nutcracker in 2006. \u003ccite>(LEA SUZUKI/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the political defeat, Sarria would proclaim himself “Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton,” and create the Imperial Court. That network of LGBTQ charities is still in operation today and holds a visible presence in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Compton’s Cafeteria Riot\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Tenderloin, at Taylor and Turk Streets, a 24-hour diner called Compton’s Cafeteria was a generally safe spot for the neighborhood’s queer, gender non-conforming, drag, trans and sex-worker population.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Female impersonation” was illegal in the sixties, and police regularly harassed people who appeared to be in violation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In August 1966, diner staff called the police one night and reported that the patrons had become rowdy. Though police records from the time no longer exist, an officer reportedly grabbed a trans woman to arrest her and she responded by throwing a cup of coffee in his face.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It broke out into a rebellion that took to the streets,” Christ said, “and it’s worth noting that these trailblazers existed. They were trans women and drag performers who were fighting police on the streets of the Tenderloin.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot didn’t result in the widespread change that Stonewall would a few years later but it is the first known act of widespread resistance to police harassment in U.S. history.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Cockettes\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the sixties a counter-culture drag troupe called the Cockettes was breaking down walls in drag expression.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“They were hippies. They would put glitter in their beards, and they lived together like a commune,” Christ said. “They were an inclusive drag troupe that included straight people, cis women, men, trans women.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980176\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980176\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872.jpg\" alt=\"Four performers in exaggereateid costumes on stage.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1324\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-800x552.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-1020x703.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-1536x1059.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Cockettes perform Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma in New York in July 1971. \u003ccite>(Jack Mitchell/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Cockettes are remembered for their outlandish parties at the Palace Theatre in North Beach and for their gender-bending expression of drag that pushed the boundaries beyond the usual ‘cis man in a dress’ drag formula.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Cockettes were fueled by glitter and drugs and lots and lots of talent,” added Christ. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that LGBTQ recording artist and San Francisco disco legend Sylvester, best known for the song \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3vtOEiO6TY\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, was once a Cockette. The larger group would fizzle out almost as quickly as they began, but some members still perform today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Ministry of the Sisters\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During the 80s and early 90s, AIDS wreaked havoc on the city’s gay population. A ragtag group of charitable drag queen nuns sprang into action to try to save lives and became de facto spiritual leaders in the wake of the loss, fear and uncertainty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was scary. Nobody knew what it was. All people knew was that gay men were getting sick and dying,” Sister Roma said. She joined the Sisters in 1987 in the midst of what she called AIDS hysteria. “I remember checking my tongue for white spots and feeling my lymph nodes.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roma and the Sisters created and distributed a safer-sex pamphlet, Play Fair!, believed to be the first to use sex-positive language and humor, to the LGBTQ community, along with boatloads of condoms.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We went out almost every night, through all the bars, getting condoms into hands, getting condoms into people’s minds,” Roma said, “Because we wanted to protect people and to save lives.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they weren’t educating the community, the Sisters fought for the visibility of the AIDS crisis at a time when the federal government wouldn’t acknowledge the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was a real consensus among some people that HIV/AIDS wasn’t an issue because it was killing all the right people,” Roma said. “It was intravenous drug users, prostitutes and faggots. Who cares, right?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As medications began to move HIV from a death sentence to a manageable disease, the Sisters’ ranks continued to swell with community activists and philanthropists simply delighted to play with their gender expression in interesting ways.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980178\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980178\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n.jpg\" alt='Seven \"sisters\" in their drag nun attire stand in front of Dolores Park in San Francisco. Near them is a sign that says \"wear a mask.\" They are all wearing masks as well.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence showed up to spread best practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as they did at the start of the AIDS crisis. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sister Roma)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sisters are now a worldwide organization but are just as active in San Francisco as ever. You can find the Sisters at community events, pride festivals, marches and they host the massive Easter in the Park featuring the Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary contests. That event attracts tens of thousands of all ages and orientations to Dolores Park each Easter and has for 45 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Early Aughts\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late nineties and early 2000s, the drag scene in San Francisco was getting edgier. A gritty show called “Trannyshack” was packing The Stud, a tiny bar in SoMa, on Tuesday nights for a wild party that completely broke the rules of drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trannyshack was wild,” said Christ, who got her start in San Francisco drag at Trannyshack, “it was artistic, it was crazy, it was outrageous, it was drug and alcohol-fueled, and it was pure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“[The word ‘tranny’ was] an irreverent and endearing way to refer to people who fell outside of the gender norm. It referred to drag queens, trans people, transvestites, cross-dressers, and it referred to every little nuance in between,” Christ said. “Trannyshack, a place where all these people could go and be accepted and party and to have fun.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the next two decades the host of Trannyshack, drag queen Heklina, became a beloved figure in San Francisco’s LGBTQ community despite her abrasive on-stage persona.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980189\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655.jpg\" alt=\"A drag queen wears a orange-peach sequined gown. They are standing in front of a red curtain, speaking into a microphone. They have a big blonde wig, and lots of jewelry. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heklina performs onstage at the Roast Battle at the 2019 Clusterfest. Her on-stage persona had edge, but behind the scenes, Heklina was a kind person interested in charitable work. \u003ccite>(Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Clusterfest)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Heklina presented herself in many ways as an unapologetically greedy bitch,” joked Christ, adding that though Heklina was always helping the community behind the scenes, “she was uncomfortable getting the credit for it. She was a secret nice person.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Heklina passed away suddenly in April of 2023 the San Francisco LGBTQ community organized a large memorial service that shut down the Castro for hours. The community came out by the thousands to mourn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The reason thousands of people showed up for her memorial wasn’t just because she was a funny entertainer,” Christ said, though she acknowledged that Heklina was hilarious, “People showed up in San Francisco because she had created community for them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Drag Story Hour\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2015, the first drag performer for Drag Story Hour was Per Sia, who said she was leading a double life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I was working at a children’s afterschool arts program during the day and performing in drag at night,” she said. When she was contacted to host the first Drag Story Hour, she said yes but had reservations. ” Up until that point, I kept everything separate.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The idea behind Drag Story Hour is a representation for children to have glamorous, positive and queer role models and to feel free to play with their own gender expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the first Drag Story Hour, Per Sia knew she’d done the right thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was this feeling of calmness,” she said, “all of my identities were in one place.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980192\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980192\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2.jpeg\" alt=\"A drag queen stands, gesturing dramatically while reading from a book. A handful of children sit by her feet.\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2-160x120.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Per Sia began reading to children at the first ever Drag Queen Story Hour in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Per Sia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some conservative groups have criticized Drag Story Hour, but that doesn’t slow the organization or Per Sia down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I still push forward because I love what I do,” Per Sia said, admitting that the threats from conservative groups have been scary. But she said it’s all worth it because she is setting an example for the children.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Little kids have the vocabulary to really identify what’s really going on inside, and that is so special to me,” Per Sia said with pride, “and it’s like, ‘I did that!’”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There are now 20-something chapters of Drag Story Hour around the world,” Per Sia said, beaming, “I’m just over the moon to think that I am a part of that history.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Defending Drag\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As drag becomes more visible and harder to ignore, mainstream society is beginning to wrestle with the issue. By contrast, the San Francisco we know has been forged by drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have a transgender cultural district, a leather cultural district, the Castro cultural district. We have a drag laureate, ” proclaimed Sister Roma, “San Francisco does remain the beacon of hope to our queer community worldwide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“To remove drag would be like taking the city and turning it black and white,” Peaches Christ said. “San Francisco is full of color and fabulousness and by removing drag from it and all of its variations, I think you’d really mute what makes it special. This city is run by drag.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From North Beach to the Tenderloin, the Castro to SoMa, San Francisco history and drag \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">herstory\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> follow the same path, and often it’s those high-heeled footprints in the lead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the past decade, drag has become a centerpiece of American pop culture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Start Ru Paul’s Drag Race theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Maybe you’ve seen RuPaul’s Drag Race on MTV. The show and its host have won armfuls of Emmy awards. And RuPaul is widely regarded as the most famous drag queen in the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RuPaul’s Drag Race clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The time has come for you to lip sync for your LIFE!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then there’s the drag brunches, drag bingo — and more recently, the Drag Story Hour — that have become ubiquitous in many cities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But growing attention has also led to growing disdain.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It has everything to do with this being inappropriate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Whether it’s love or hate on the national stage, drag is a hot topic of conversation. And you really can’t understand how we got to this point nationally without heading to San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag in San Francisco is as crucial to the identity of this city as the cable car. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We thought it was high-heel time to take a closer look at drag culture in San Francisco. Today, we’re taking a crash course through decades of Drag Herstory to better understand its larger impact on San Francisco and the country.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Straight people have wigs in this town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia-Allen Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A note: There is some potentially offensive language in this episode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Stick around for Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Sponsor Message]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On any given night in San Francisco you can step into any number of bars in the city and find a drag queen at the center of the action. Like Betty Fresas at Midnight Sun on Thursday nights. She cracks jokes, lip-syncs, celebrates birthdays with shots … and light humiliation. It’s a blast! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in San Francisco, our queens do so much more than entertaining bar patrons. They serve their communities through fundraising, political activism and even by holding public office.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Christopher Beale spoke with three of San Francisco’s drag icons, starting with Peaches Christ.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What is a drag queen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A drag queen is someone who likes to use fabulous costumes and exaggerated performance to entertain people. And a drag queen, traditionally, has meant a cis man who dons women’s clothes for entertainment purposes, usually pretty fabulous and flamboyant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There are examples of what we might call drag today dating back centuries. The first time it was actually \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">called, that\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is believed to have happened around 1870. In the time since drag queens have evolved from underground entertainment to queer community leaders to international megastars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re kind of queer preachers in a way. We create fellowship, we create community, we make people laugh, we make people feel good about themselves, and when the shit hits the fan and stuff needs to be done, you often see it’s drag queens who are community organizers and the ones mobilizing to take care of a need. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In San Francisco, drag dates back to at least the 1930s, but this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">isn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a comprehensive history. The scene is too vibrant, and it could take hours — and many, many costume changes — so what I want to do is hit on a few key moments when drag culture left big impacts on San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Early drag in San Francisco, it was an art form that actually wasn’t seen as that queer because they sort of presented it in a way that was safe for straight audiences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Remember the opening scene of the Robin Williams movie \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Birdcage\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Think of a straight nightclub featuring female illusion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Peaches Christ: \u003c/b>In San Francisco, the longest-running nightclub that featured drag was called Finocchio’s over in North Beach.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And it was around for decades \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> From the mid-30s to the late 90s, these clubs in North Beach would feature drag queens lip-syncing pop songs and making jokes for largely straight audiences. This was light-hearted fun. None of the heavy stuff, and definitely no politics. But that was about to shift.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And when that shift happened is when San Francisco really became different, and sort of special and unlike other drag communities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This drag queen named Jose Sarria started making noise about gay rights from the stage at another North Beach hotspot called, The Black Cat Club, encouraging people to stop living double lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarria would grow his influence and go on to become the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States in 1961, when he ran for a board of supervisor’s seat. He didn’t win, but he did reveal the power of the gay voting bloc in San Francisco and helped forge a path for Harvey Milk to be elected almost 20 years later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jose Sarria didn’t take the electoral loss lying down, he continued his community work in drag and went on to inspire the creation of the Imperial Court system, an international network of charities still in operation today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A few years later, in 1966, drag performers were part of a pivotal moment in San Francisco and LGBTQ history. The night the Tenderloin became a tinder box of activity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Compton’s Cafeteria was a late-night dining spot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A clean, safe, well-lit 24-hour diner in the Tenderloin. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Trans folks, drag performers, sex workers, the community could go there, this was a known place for people to gather.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “Female impersonation” was still a crime in the 60s and the police regularly harassed people outside the gender binary. Even in the relative safety of the Tenderloin, which was then seen as a gay neighborhood, queer people were never truly safe. And on one hot August night, workers at the cafeteria called the police to deal with what they deemed rambunctious diners. Police records from the time don’t exist anymore, but a police officer is said to have grabbed a trans woman to arrest her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And the community fought back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She responded by throwing a cup of coffee in his face. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It broke out into a rebellion that took to the streets. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sugar shakers were thrown through the restaurant windows and drag queens were seen beating police with heavy purses. A newsstand on the corner was set on fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Compton’s Cafeteria riot didn’t lead to the changes that Stonewall would a few years later, but it stands as the first known example of collective militant queer resistance to police harassment in U.S. history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It is worth noting that these trailblazers existed and that they were real heroes and really brave and they were trans women and drag performers who were fighting police on the streets of the Tenderloin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Start 1960s era music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag expression was undergoing a huge change during this era as well. In the late 1960s, The Cockettes burst onto the scene. They were as counter-culture as you could get and were some of the first to break the traditional “cis man dressed as a woman” mold for drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Peaches Christ: \u003c/b>I guess you could say they were hippies; they would put glitter in their beards, and they lived together like a commune.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were an inclusive drag troupe that included straight people, cis women, men, trans women… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Cockettes became notorious for these wild midnight movies at the Palace Theater in North Beach, where drag performers would sing and dance in the aisles during films from greats like John Waters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were fueled by glitter and drugs and lots and lots of talent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[start “Mighty Real” by Sylvester]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: Divine — the controversial and influential drag queen from some of those John Waters movies — has performed with the Cockettes, and at one point, San Francisco recording artist and LGBTQ pioneer Sylvester was a Cockette.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[End music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Cockettes became so popular, so fast, that the group began to splinter into cliques and eventually fell apart, though some members still perform today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Cockettes over the top, irreverent, no-holds-barred style of drag would help inspire generations of queens to push the envelope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Somber music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Around 1982, HIV AIDS started to ravage the community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That is philanthropist, drag queen and member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Sister Roma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was scary. Nobody knew what it was. All people knew is that gay men, mostly, were getting sick and dying. I remember checking my tongue for white spots and feeling my lymph nodes. It was like AIDS hysteria. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Americans began seeing TV reports like this one demonizing the LGBTQ community.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival Tape: …\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lifestyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic and a rare form of cancer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>In 1987, Roma was looking for a way to help when she discovered and quickly joined this fairly new ragtag order of drag queen nuns called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’d been founded on Easter Sunday in 1979. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two of those early sisters were medical professionals, and as soon as HIV and AIDS was discovered to be sexually transmitted, the Sisters sprang into action. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We went out almost every night, went through all the bars, getting condoms into hands, getting condoms into people’s minds, into their forefront. Because we wanted to protect people and to save lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They created the first safer sex pamphlet known to feature sex-positive language, practical advice, and most importantly, humor. When they weren’t doing safer sex outreach in the clubs, the Sisters were…if you’ll pardon the pun…raising hell in the streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Raising picket signs and bullhorns just to get people to even acknowledge that we were dying, that we needed help. Because there was a real consensus among some people that HIV AIDS wasn’t an issue because it was killing all the right people. It was intravenous drug users, prostitutes, and faggots. Who cares, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was a time when about a third of San Francisco’s 60,000+ gay men were dying of AIDS, and the Sisters became beacons of hope for the community.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As AIDS became less prevalent, the Sisters ranks continued to fill with people who wanted to give back, and the Sisters have continued to grow in influence and visibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Today we’re talking about a worldwide organization with probably a thousand members.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Easter in the Park with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an annual tradition that attracts thousands from all over to Dolores Park. It’s a big, boisterous celebration that’s become quintessentially San Franciscan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music transition]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the mid-90s, after the horror of AIDS began to wane, the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco galvanized and began to go out like never before. Bars, clubs, and parties were packed as the community collectively blew off steam. In 1996, a drag queen named Heklina started a legendary SoMa party that put the spotlight on San Francisco’s unique blend of drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heklina performance clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many stars have been born on this stage. This very very special stage. I would kiss this stage right now if it wasn’t covered with blood and shit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Heklina in many ways was the truest embodiment of Punk rock to drag, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Heklina’s show was called Tranny Shack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She created it. And proceeded to produce a different show every week at midnight, on a Tuesday, with packed houses for 13 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heklina performance clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have wigs older than you are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Back when the show was launched, Heklina chose the word “tranny” with an eye toward inclusivity. It was a slur, yes, but like a lot of slurs, it came to be reclaimed/adopted by the group it aimed to harm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> An irreverent and endearing way to refer to people who fell outside of the gender norm. Tranny back then referred to drag queens. Trans people. Transvestites, cross-dressers. And it referred to every little nuance in between because between all those things, there’s a lot of gray area, and between those things, there’s overlap. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And what Tranny Shack was, was a place where all these people could go, and did go, and be accepted and party and to have fun and it was wild. It was artistic. It was crazy. It was outrageous. It was drug and alcohol-fueled, and it was pure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Over the next two decades, Peaches saw Heklina become a community leader, always helping to raise money for causes big and small, which was sort of the opposite of her on-stage persona.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She presented herself in many ways as an unapologetically greedy bitch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But that was just a persona, Heklina loved to help people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was uncomfortable getting the credit for it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Heklina suddenly passed away in 2023, the city’s queer community came out by the thousands as if to honor a fallen hero.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Heklina’s funeral: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the event is simply, Heklina a memories.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She would have hated this. Yes, yes, she would.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The reason thousands of people showed up for her memorial… it wasn’t just because she was a funny entertainer. Yes, that’s true. But people showed up in San Francisco because she had created community for them. She was a secret nice person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag is not just about entertainment. Drag is also community work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Next, I want to introduce you to a not-so-secret nice person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Persia or Persia. Either one works. Trust me. I’ve been called way worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A few years back Persia was performing in drag at night, but during the day…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was working at a children’s afterschool arts program here in San Francisco, so I was leading a double life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was approached by a group planning to organize Drag Story Hour…where a drag queen reads a book to kids. The idea is representation, for children to have glamorous, positive, and queer role models and to feel free to play with their own gender expression. This was a new concept, but it hit Per Sia in the heartstrings. So, in December 2015… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag Story Hour started here in San Francisco. And I was the first performer to be part of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This was sort of a meeting of two worlds for Persia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was really nervous because up until that point, I kept everything separate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she got up in front of a room of kids, and she read to them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia reading to kids: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, my name is Per Sia. And I’m a drag queen. Welcome to Drag Story Hour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just remember just being so, so nervous. I had students of mine with their families come in. And at that moment, everything really hit. I was merging my lives together, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Do you remember what book you read? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I read something unicorn. And then. A bear book. I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Unicorns and bears. That’s the takeaway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ha ha ha. Gay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Afterwards, there was this feeling of calmness. And I had never experienced so much joy. And I’m not going to cry, but it was feeling like all my identities are in one place. And that’s how it felt when I left. And I was just like, oh, like. It’s like, damn I did that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little kids have the vocabulary to really identify what’s really going on inside, and that is so special to me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And to know that now there’s 20-something chapters around the world, and that I was the first one, and that it started here in San Francisco. I’m just over the moon to just think that I am part of that history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag Story Hour has received quite a bit of press attention, and conservative groups have targeted them, even showing up at places where queens are reading to children.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Does that make you afraid when you go to these libraries or schools? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yes. But I still push forward. Because I love what I do and if I don’t do that, then what am I going to do? I am already depressed, and anxiety is off the roof. Like, and if I don’t do what I like, then. I’m just going to go back in that hole, you know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Peaches Christ says the hate drag performers have received is simply a response to progress.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We as a community, have existed for many years behind closed doors, performing at night in nightclubs for queer people. We’ve progressed to the point where these families and these people that are so fear-based don’t like seeing us on their televisions. They don’t like seeing us on their kids’ computers or on their social media. They don’t want us in their libraries. They don’t want us in their schools. They don’t want us at their symphony halls. They don’t want us at their baseball stadiums.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s important to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sister Roma again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You can’t take away pride flags and you can’t say don’t say gay. Like we have always been here. Trans people, queer people have always, always been here. And we will always. Always be here. They don’t know who they’re picking a fight with. We have overcome much bigger battles we fought a plague. We showed the world how to, who react with compassion in the face of pandemic that was killing our community, we rose up and showed the world how to respond. We got this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To people like Per Sia, Sister Roma, and Peaches Christ, San Francisco history and drag HERstory are inseparably intertwined. It’s hard to imagine The City without drag queens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’d be like taking the city and turning it black and white. San Francisco is full of color and fabulousness and by removing drag from it and all of its variations, I think you’d really mute what makes it special. This city is run by drag. It’s a drag oasis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Almost 100 years have gone by since those first queens graced the stage in San Francisco. The city – and the world! – have been shaped by those that came after.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We have a transgender cultural district, a leather cultural district, the Castro cultural district. We have a drag laureate, Darcy Drollinger. So many great queer trans drag leaders and so much to be proud of here in San Francisco. And this does remain a beacon of hope to our queer community worldwide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Bay Curious reporter and sound engineer Christopher Beale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> GAY! \u003c/span>\u003cb>*laugh & fade*\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the end of every Bay Curious episode, you may have noticed we always say …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice over:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To us, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">member-supported\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the operative phrase there. We are so proud that Bay Curious is available for free to everyone, but it does cost money to make.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sixty percent of our budget comes from listeners. Many give $5, $10, $20 a month … and it adds up! If you’ve thought in the past, “Oh gosh, I really should donate” but haven’t gotten around to it (I’ve been there). This is your sign to make good on those thoughts. Don’t delay. Grab your phone and navigate to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … within minutes you’ll be done and feeling good about supporting shows like Bay Curious. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a fabulous week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag as an art form dates back centuries, but as shows like MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race have grown a worldwide following, drag has become more visible than ever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The show’s namesake and host, RuPaul, arguably the most famous drag queen in the world, is now the most decorated television host in Emmy history. Not Johnny Carson, not Barbara Walters … RuPaul.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is also a heated debate coursing through statehouses and on some media programs about whether or not drag queens are appropriate entertainment for adults and children alike. Florida, Montana, Tennessee and Texas all have laws that, though unenforceable due to a federal court order, would ban drag performances.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In San Francisco, this debate over drag is long settled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Drag is as crucial to the identity of this city as the cable car,” said Peaches Christ, a San Francisco drag performer, director and provocateur for the last three decades. “Straight people have wigs in this town!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag has been breaking ground and creating a community for San Franciscans for almost a century.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>But how did it get that way?\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Drag has been an active part of the entertainment scene in San Francisco since the 1930s.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Early drag in San Francisco was presented in a way that was safe for straight audiences,” Christ said. “It traditionally has meant a cis man who dons women’s clothes, for entertainment purposes, usually pretty fabulous and flamboyant.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finocchio’s Club was an institution for 60 years in the North Beach neighborhood and featured “female illusion.” This was light-hearted fun. None of the heavy stuff and definitely no politics. But that was about to shift.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980250\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980250\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo featuring eight drag queens posing on a multi-tiered stage, wearing gowns.\" width=\"600\" height=\"489\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/Medium-sized-JPEG-160x130.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Finocchio’s nightclub was known for its “female impersonators” who entertained patrons nightly. This 1958 photo shows the cast of the floor show. \u003ccite>(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At The Black Cat Club, another North Beach hot spot, Jose Sarria was a cocktail waiter turned drag queen who sang operatic arias. During Sarria’s performances, she started to encourage patrons to stop living double lives and to come out of the closet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1961, Sarria ran for a San Francisco Board of Supervisors seat. He lost, but his campaign was an early demonstration of the power of the gay voting bloc that would eventually elect Harvey Milk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980181\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1493px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980181\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a white full body leotard and a pink tutu and white angel wings and a crown. They are gesturing toward the camera, as if to take flight.\" width=\"1493\" height=\"991\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068.jpg 1493w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-800x531.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-1020x677.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1322409068-160x106.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1493px) 100vw, 1493px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jose Sarria, a.k.a. The Widow Norton, dances as the Sugar Plum Fairy during the Dance-Along Nutcracker in 2006. \u003ccite>(LEA SUZUKI/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the political defeat, Sarria would proclaim himself “Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow Norton,” and create the Imperial Court. That network of LGBTQ charities is still in operation today and holds a visible presence in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Compton’s Cafeteria Riot\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Tenderloin, at Taylor and Turk Streets, a 24-hour diner called Compton’s Cafeteria was a generally safe spot for the neighborhood’s queer, gender non-conforming, drag, trans and sex-worker population.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Female impersonation” was illegal in the sixties, and police regularly harassed people who appeared to be in violation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In August 1966, diner staff called the police one night and reported that the patrons had become rowdy. Though police records from the time no longer exist, an officer reportedly grabbed a trans woman to arrest her and she responded by throwing a cup of coffee in his face.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It broke out into a rebellion that took to the streets,” Christ said, “and it’s worth noting that these trailblazers existed. They were trans women and drag performers who were fighting police on the streets of the Tenderloin.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot didn’t result in the widespread change that Stonewall would a few years later but it is the first known act of widespread resistance to police harassment in U.S. history.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Cockettes\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the sixties a counter-culture drag troupe called the Cockettes was breaking down walls in drag expression.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“They were hippies. They would put glitter in their beards, and they lived together like a commune,” Christ said. “They were an inclusive drag troupe that included straight people, cis women, men, trans women.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980176\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980176\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872.jpg\" alt=\"Four performers in exaggereateid costumes on stage.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1324\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-800x552.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-1020x703.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-603956872-1536x1059.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Cockettes perform Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma in New York in July 1971. \u003ccite>(Jack Mitchell/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Cockettes are remembered for their outlandish parties at the Palace Theatre in North Beach and for their gender-bending expression of drag that pushed the boundaries beyond the usual ‘cis man in a dress’ drag formula.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Cockettes were fueled by glitter and drugs and lots and lots of talent,” added Christ. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that LGBTQ recording artist and San Francisco disco legend Sylvester, best known for the song \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3vtOEiO6TY\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, was once a Cockette. The larger group would fizzle out almost as quickly as they began, but some members still perform today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Ministry of the Sisters\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During the 80s and early 90s, AIDS wreaked havoc on the city’s gay population. A ragtag group of charitable drag queen nuns sprang into action to try to save lives and became de facto spiritual leaders in the wake of the loss, fear and uncertainty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was scary. Nobody knew what it was. All people knew was that gay men were getting sick and dying,” Sister Roma said. She joined the Sisters in 1987 in the midst of what she called AIDS hysteria. “I remember checking my tongue for white spots and feeling my lymph nodes.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roma and the Sisters created and distributed a safer-sex pamphlet, Play Fair!, believed to be the first to use sex-positive language and humor, to the LGBTQ community, along with boatloads of condoms.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We went out almost every night, through all the bars, getting condoms into hands, getting condoms into people’s minds,” Roma said, “Because we wanted to protect people and to save lives.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they weren’t educating the community, the Sisters fought for the visibility of the AIDS crisis at a time when the federal government wouldn’t acknowledge the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was a real consensus among some people that HIV/AIDS wasn’t an issue because it was killing all the right people,” Roma said. “It was intravenous drug users, prostitutes and faggots. Who cares, right?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As medications began to move HIV from a death sentence to a manageable disease, the Sisters’ ranks continued to swell with community activists and philanthropists simply delighted to play with their gender expression in interesting ways.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980178\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980178\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n.jpg\" alt='Seven \"sisters\" in their drag nun attire stand in front of Dolores Park in San Francisco. Near them is a sign that says \"wear a mask.\" They are all wearing masks as well.' width=\"1920\" height=\"1281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/118798286_3373916526051177_8781469385850932712_n-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence showed up to spread best practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as they did at the start of the AIDS crisis. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Sister Roma)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sisters are now a worldwide organization but are just as active in San Francisco as ever. You can find the Sisters at community events, pride festivals, marches and they host the massive Easter in the Park featuring the Hunky Jesus and Foxy Mary contests. That event attracts tens of thousands of all ages and orientations to Dolores Park each Easter and has for 45 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>The Early Aughts\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late nineties and early 2000s, the drag scene in San Francisco was getting edgier. A gritty show called “Trannyshack” was packing The Stud, a tiny bar in SoMa, on Tuesday nights for a wild party that completely broke the rules of drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Trannyshack was wild,” said Christ, who got her start in San Francisco drag at Trannyshack, “it was artistic, it was crazy, it was outrageous, it was drug and alcohol-fueled, and it was pure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“[The word ‘tranny’ was] an irreverent and endearing way to refer to people who fell outside of the gender norm. It referred to drag queens, trans people, transvestites, cross-dressers, and it referred to every little nuance in between,” Christ said. “Trannyshack, a place where all these people could go and be accepted and party and to have fun.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the next two decades the host of Trannyshack, drag queen Heklina, became a beloved figure in San Francisco’s LGBTQ community despite her abrasive on-stage persona.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980189\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655.jpg\" alt=\"A drag queen wears a orange-peach sequined gown. They are standing in front of a red curtain, speaking into a microphone. They have a big blonde wig, and lots of jewelry. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1278\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/GettyImages-1157521655-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heklina performs onstage at the Roast Battle at the 2019 Clusterfest. Her on-stage persona had edge, but behind the scenes, Heklina was a kind person interested in charitable work. \u003ccite>(Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Clusterfest)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Heklina presented herself in many ways as an unapologetically greedy bitch,” joked Christ, adding that though Heklina was always helping the community behind the scenes, “she was uncomfortable getting the credit for it. She was a secret nice person.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Heklina passed away suddenly in April of 2023 the San Francisco LGBTQ community organized a large memorial service that shut down the Castro for hours. The community came out by the thousands to mourn.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The reason thousands of people showed up for her memorial wasn’t just because she was a funny entertainer,” Christ said, though she acknowledged that Heklina was hilarious, “People showed up in San Francisco because she had created community for them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Drag Story Hour\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2015, the first drag performer for Drag Story Hour was Per Sia, who said she was leading a double life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I was working at a children’s afterschool arts program during the day and performing in drag at night,” she said. When she was contacted to host the first Drag Story Hour, she said yes but had reservations. ” Up until that point, I kept everything separate.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The idea behind Drag Story Hour is a representation for children to have glamorous, positive and queer role models and to feel free to play with their own gender expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the first Drag Story Hour, Per Sia knew she’d done the right thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There was this feeling of calmness,” she said, “all of my identities were in one place.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11980192\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980192\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2.jpeg\" alt=\"A drag queen stands, gesturing dramatically while reading from a book. A handful of children sit by her feet.\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2.jpeg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/image2-160x120.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Per Sia began reading to children at the first ever Drag Queen Story Hour in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Per Sia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some conservative groups have criticized Drag Story Hour, but that doesn’t slow the organization or Per Sia down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I still push forward because I love what I do,” Per Sia said, admitting that the threats from conservative groups have been scary. But she said it’s all worth it because she is setting an example for the children.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Little kids have the vocabulary to really identify what’s really going on inside, and that is so special to me,” Per Sia said with pride, “and it’s like, ‘I did that!’”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There are now 20-something chapters of Drag Story Hour around the world,” Per Sia said, beaming, “I’m just over the moon to think that I am a part of that history.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Defending Drag\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As drag becomes more visible and harder to ignore, mainstream society is beginning to wrestle with the issue. By contrast, the San Francisco we know has been forged by drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have a transgender cultural district, a leather cultural district, the Castro cultural district. We have a drag laureate, ” proclaimed Sister Roma, “San Francisco does remain the beacon of hope to our queer community worldwide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“To remove drag would be like taking the city and turning it black and white,” Peaches Christ said. “San Francisco is full of color and fabulousness and by removing drag from it and all of its variations, I think you’d really mute what makes it special. This city is run by drag.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From North Beach to the Tenderloin, the Castro to SoMa, San Francisco history and drag \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">herstory\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> follow the same path, and often it’s those high-heeled footprints in the lead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the past decade, drag has become a centerpiece of American pop culture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Start Ru Paul’s Drag Race theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Maybe you’ve seen RuPaul’s Drag Race on MTV. The show and its host have won armfuls of Emmy awards. And RuPaul is widely regarded as the most famous drag queen in the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>RuPaul’s Drag Race clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The time has come for you to lip sync for your LIFE!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Then there’s the drag brunches, drag bingo — and more recently, the Drag Story Hour — that have become ubiquitous in many cities.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But growing attention has also led to growing disdain.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It has everything to do with this being inappropriate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Whether it’s love or hate on the national stage, drag is a hot topic of conversation. And you really can’t understand how we got to this point nationally without heading to San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag in San Francisco is as crucial to the identity of this city as the cable car. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We thought it was high-heel time to take a closer look at drag culture in San Francisco. Today, we’re taking a crash course through decades of Drag Herstory to better understand its larger impact on San Francisco and the country.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Straight people have wigs in this town.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia-Allen Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A note: There is some potentially offensive language in this episode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Stick around for Bay Curious.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Sponsor Message]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On any given night in San Francisco you can step into any number of bars in the city and find a drag queen at the center of the action. Like Betty Fresas at Midnight Sun on Thursday nights. She cracks jokes, lip-syncs, celebrates birthdays with shots … and light humiliation. It’s a blast! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in San Francisco, our queens do so much more than entertaining bar patrons. They serve their communities through fundraising, political activism and even by holding public office.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED’s Christopher Beale spoke with three of San Francisco’s drag icons, starting with Peaches Christ.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What is a drag queen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A drag queen is someone who likes to use fabulous costumes and exaggerated performance to entertain people. And a drag queen, traditionally, has meant a cis man who dons women’s clothes for entertainment purposes, usually pretty fabulous and flamboyant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There are examples of what we might call drag today dating back centuries. The first time it was actually \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">called, that\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is believed to have happened around 1870. In the time since drag queens have evolved from underground entertainment to queer community leaders to international megastars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re kind of queer preachers in a way. We create fellowship, we create community, we make people laugh, we make people feel good about themselves, and when the shit hits the fan and stuff needs to be done, you often see it’s drag queens who are community organizers and the ones mobilizing to take care of a need. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In San Francisco, drag dates back to at least the 1930s, but this \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">isn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a comprehensive history. The scene is too vibrant, and it could take hours — and many, many costume changes — so what I want to do is hit on a few key moments when drag culture left big impacts on San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Early drag in San Francisco, it was an art form that actually wasn’t seen as that queer because they sort of presented it in a way that was safe for straight audiences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Remember the opening scene of the Robin Williams movie \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Birdcage\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Think of a straight nightclub featuring female illusion.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Peaches Christ: \u003c/b>In San Francisco, the longest-running nightclub that featured drag was called Finocchio’s over in North Beach.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And it was around for decades \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> From the mid-30s to the late 90s, these clubs in North Beach would feature drag queens lip-syncing pop songs and making jokes for largely straight audiences. This was light-hearted fun. None of the heavy stuff, and definitely no politics. But that was about to shift.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And when that shift happened is when San Francisco really became different, and sort of special and unlike other drag communities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This drag queen named Jose Sarria started making noise about gay rights from the stage at another North Beach hotspot called, The Black Cat Club, encouraging people to stop living double lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sarria would grow his influence and go on to become the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States in 1961, when he ran for a board of supervisor’s seat. He didn’t win, but he did reveal the power of the gay voting bloc in San Francisco and helped forge a path for Harvey Milk to be elected almost 20 years later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jose Sarria didn’t take the electoral loss lying down, he continued his community work in drag and went on to inspire the creation of the Imperial Court system, an international network of charities still in operation today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A few years later, in 1966, drag performers were part of a pivotal moment in San Francisco and LGBTQ history. The night the Tenderloin became a tinder box of activity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Compton’s Cafeteria was a late-night dining spot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A clean, safe, well-lit 24-hour diner in the Tenderloin. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Trans folks, drag performers, sex workers, the community could go there, this was a known place for people to gather.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “Female impersonation” was still a crime in the 60s and the police regularly harassed people outside the gender binary. Even in the relative safety of the Tenderloin, which was then seen as a gay neighborhood, queer people were never truly safe. And on one hot August night, workers at the cafeteria called the police to deal with what they deemed rambunctious diners. Police records from the time don’t exist anymore, but a police officer is said to have grabbed a trans woman to arrest her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And the community fought back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She responded by throwing a cup of coffee in his face. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It broke out into a rebellion that took to the streets. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sugar shakers were thrown through the restaurant windows and drag queens were seen beating police with heavy purses. A newsstand on the corner was set on fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Compton’s Cafeteria riot didn’t lead to the changes that Stonewall would a few years later, but it stands as the first known example of collective militant queer resistance to police harassment in U.S. history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It is worth noting that these trailblazers existed and that they were real heroes and really brave and they were trans women and drag performers who were fighting police on the streets of the Tenderloin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Start 1960s era music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag expression was undergoing a huge change during this era as well. In the late 1960s, The Cockettes burst onto the scene. They were as counter-culture as you could get and were some of the first to break the traditional “cis man dressed as a woman” mold for drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Peaches Christ: \u003c/b>I guess you could say they were hippies; they would put glitter in their beards, and they lived together like a commune.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were an inclusive drag troupe that included straight people, cis women, men, trans women… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Cockettes became notorious for these wild midnight movies at the Palace Theater in North Beach, where drag performers would sing and dance in the aisles during films from greats like John Waters.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were fueled by glitter and drugs and lots and lots of talent.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[start “Mighty Real” by Sylvester]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: Divine — the controversial and influential drag queen from some of those John Waters movies — has performed with the Cockettes, and at one point, San Francisco recording artist and LGBTQ pioneer Sylvester was a Cockette.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[End music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Cockettes became so popular, so fast, that the group began to splinter into cliques and eventually fell apart, though some members still perform today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Cockettes over the top, irreverent, no-holds-barred style of drag would help inspire generations of queens to push the envelope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Somber music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Around 1982, HIV AIDS started to ravage the community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That is philanthropist, drag queen and member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Sister Roma.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was scary. Nobody knew what it was. All people knew is that gay men, mostly, were getting sick and dying. I remember checking my tongue for white spots and feeling my lymph nodes. It was like AIDS hysteria. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Americans began seeing TV reports like this one demonizing the LGBTQ community.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival Tape: …\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lifestyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic and a rare form of cancer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Christopher Beale: \u003c/b>In 1987, Roma was looking for a way to help when she discovered and quickly joined this fairly new ragtag order of drag queen nuns called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’d been founded on Easter Sunday in 1979. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two of those early sisters were medical professionals, and as soon as HIV and AIDS was discovered to be sexually transmitted, the Sisters sprang into action. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We went out almost every night, went through all the bars, getting condoms into hands, getting condoms into people’s minds, into their forefront. Because we wanted to protect people and to save lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They created the first safer sex pamphlet known to feature sex-positive language, practical advice, and most importantly, humor. When they weren’t doing safer sex outreach in the clubs, the Sisters were…if you’ll pardon the pun…raising hell in the streets.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Raising picket signs and bullhorns just to get people to even acknowledge that we were dying, that we needed help. Because there was a real consensus among some people that HIV AIDS wasn’t an issue because it was killing all the right people. It was intravenous drug users, prostitutes, and faggots. Who cares, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was a time when about a third of San Francisco’s 60,000+ gay men were dying of AIDS, and the Sisters became beacons of hope for the community.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As AIDS became less prevalent, the Sisters ranks continued to fill with people who wanted to give back, and the Sisters have continued to grow in influence and visibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Today we’re talking about a worldwide organization with probably a thousand members.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Easter in the Park with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is an annual tradition that attracts thousands from all over to Dolores Park. It’s a big, boisterous celebration that’s become quintessentially San Franciscan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music transition]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In the mid-90s, after the horror of AIDS began to wane, the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco galvanized and began to go out like never before. Bars, clubs, and parties were packed as the community collectively blew off steam. In 1996, a drag queen named Heklina started a legendary SoMa party that put the spotlight on San Francisco’s unique blend of drag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heklina performance clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many stars have been born on this stage. This very very special stage. I would kiss this stage right now if it wasn’t covered with blood and shit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Heklina in many ways was the truest embodiment of Punk rock to drag, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Heklina’s show was called Tranny Shack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She created it. And proceeded to produce a different show every week at midnight, on a Tuesday, with packed houses for 13 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Heklina performance clip: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have wigs older than you are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Back when the show was launched, Heklina chose the word “tranny” with an eye toward inclusivity. It was a slur, yes, but like a lot of slurs, it came to be reclaimed/adopted by the group it aimed to harm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> An irreverent and endearing way to refer to people who fell outside of the gender norm. Tranny back then referred to drag queens. Trans people. Transvestites, cross-dressers. And it referred to every little nuance in between because between all those things, there’s a lot of gray area, and between those things, there’s overlap. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And what Tranny Shack was, was a place where all these people could go, and did go, and be accepted and party and to have fun and it was wild. It was artistic. It was crazy. It was outrageous. It was drug and alcohol-fueled, and it was pure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Over the next two decades, Peaches saw Heklina become a community leader, always helping to raise money for causes big and small, which was sort of the opposite of her on-stage persona.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She presented herself in many ways as an unapologetically greedy bitch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But that was just a persona, Heklina loved to help people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was uncomfortable getting the credit for it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Heklina suddenly passed away in 2023, the city’s queer community came out by the thousands as if to honor a fallen hero.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Clip from Heklina’s funeral: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the event is simply, Heklina a memories.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She would have hated this. Yes, yes, she would.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The reason thousands of people showed up for her memorial… it wasn’t just because she was a funny entertainer. Yes, that’s true. But people showed up in San Francisco because she had created community for them. She was a secret nice person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag is not just about entertainment. Drag is also community work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Next, I want to introduce you to a not-so-secret nice person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Persia or Persia. Either one works. Trust me. I’ve been called way worse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A few years back Persia was performing in drag at night, but during the day…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was working at a children’s afterschool arts program here in San Francisco, so I was leading a double life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She was approached by a group planning to organize Drag Story Hour…where a drag queen reads a book to kids. The idea is representation, for children to have glamorous, positive, and queer role models and to feel free to play with their own gender expression. This was a new concept, but it hit Per Sia in the heartstrings. So, in December 2015… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag Story Hour started here in San Francisco. And I was the first performer to be part of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This was sort of a meeting of two worlds for Persia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was really nervous because up until that point, I kept everything separate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But she got up in front of a room of kids, and she read to them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia reading to kids: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, my name is Per Sia. And I’m a drag queen. Welcome to Drag Story Hour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just remember just being so, so nervous. I had students of mine with their families come in. And at that moment, everything really hit. I was merging my lives together, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Do you remember what book you read? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I read something unicorn. And then. A bear book. I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Unicorns and bears. That’s the takeaway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ha ha ha. Gay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Afterwards, there was this feeling of calmness. And I had never experienced so much joy. And I’m not going to cry, but it was feeling like all my identities are in one place. And that’s how it felt when I left. And I was just like, oh, like. It’s like, damn I did that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little kids have the vocabulary to really identify what’s really going on inside, and that is so special to me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And to know that now there’s 20-something chapters around the world, and that I was the first one, and that it started here in San Francisco. I’m just over the moon to just think that I am part of that history. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Drag Story Hour has received quite a bit of press attention, and conservative groups have targeted them, even showing up at places where queens are reading to children.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale in scene:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Does that make you afraid when you go to these libraries or schools? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yes. But I still push forward. Because I love what I do and if I don’t do that, then what am I going to do? I am already depressed, and anxiety is off the roof. Like, and if I don’t do what I like, then. I’m just going to go back in that hole, you know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music starts]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Peaches Christ says the hate drag performers have received is simply a response to progress.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We as a community, have existed for many years behind closed doors, performing at night in nightclubs for queer people. We’ve progressed to the point where these families and these people that are so fear-based don’t like seeing us on their televisions. They don’t like seeing us on their kids’ computers or on their social media. They don’t want us in their libraries. They don’t want us in their schools. They don’t want us at their symphony halls. They don’t want us at their baseball stadiums.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s important to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Sister Roma again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You can’t take away pride flags and you can’t say don’t say gay. Like we have always been here. Trans people, queer people have always, always been here. And we will always. Always be here. They don’t know who they’re picking a fight with. We have overcome much bigger battles we fought a plague. We showed the world how to, who react with compassion in the face of pandemic that was killing our community, we rose up and showed the world how to respond. We got this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Christopher Beale:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To people like Per Sia, Sister Roma, and Peaches Christ, San Francisco history and drag HERstory are inseparably intertwined. It’s hard to imagine The City without drag queens.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peaches Christ:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’d be like taking the city and turning it black and white. San Francisco is full of color and fabulousness and by removing drag from it and all of its variations, I think you’d really mute what makes it special. This city is run by drag. It’s a drag oasis.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Almost 100 years have gone by since those first queens graced the stage in San Francisco. The city – and the world! – have been shaped by those that came after.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sister Roma:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We have a transgender cultural district, a leather cultural district, the Castro cultural district. We have a drag laureate, Darcy Drollinger. So many great queer trans drag leaders and so much to be proud of here in San Francisco. And this does remain a beacon of hope to our queer community worldwide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Bay Curious reporter and sound engineer Christopher Beale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Per Sia:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> GAY! \u003c/span>\u003cb>*laugh & fade*\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the end of every Bay Curious episode, you may have noticed we always say …\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice over:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To us, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">member-supported\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the operative phrase there. We are so proud that Bay Curious is available for free to everyone, but it does cost money to make.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sixty percent of our budget comes from listeners. Many give $5, $10, $20 a month … and it adds up! If you’ve thought in the past, “Oh gosh, I really should donate” but haven’t gotten around to it (I’ve been there). This is your sign to make good on those thoughts. Don’t delay. Grab your phone and navigate to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … within minutes you’ll be done and feeling good about supporting shows like Bay Curious. Thanks!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Have a fabulous week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "unraveling-the-mysteries-of-the-universe-inside-slac",
"title": "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe Inside SLAC",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you know one of the longest buildings \u003cem>on the planet\u003c/em> is in Menlo Park? And drivers speeding along Interstate 280, near Sand Hill Road, pass mere meters above it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Eric Nelson of Petaluma wanted to know more about the nearly 2-mile-long structure. He asked, “What’s that huge, long building on the side of 280 that I drive by all the time but really have no idea what it is?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out the \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/slac_factsheet_btn_08_2022_final.pdf\">SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory\u003c/a> is home to a scientific marvel that pushes particles to travel close to the speed of light. We called up Stanford, which is home to SLAC — SLAC used to stand for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, but now it’s just SLAC. Not an acronym — and they said the equivalent of, “Come on over! We give tours!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11978061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11978061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"A woman faces a monitor that is displaying information about the linear accelerator. She is pointing at a part of the screen with her finger. You cannot see her face, only the back of her head. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student researcher Rachel Spurlock explains the Linear Accelerator at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the US Department of Energy, in Menlo Park on Jan. 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Not one lab but many\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Let’s start with the fact that SLAC is big. It’s a \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/about/lab-overview\">426-acre campus\u003c/a> near Stanford University is made up of several facilities where scientists are conducting all sorts of cutting-edge research. That long, skinny building Eric noticed is just one of the facilities — the linear accelerator. It’s not the only particle accelerator in the world, but it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/quest/17535/homegrown-particle-accelerators\">one of the first.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building that houses this thing is almost two miles long. Cameras inside record the ultra-bright X-ray light that particles throw off to create freeze-frame movies of molecules, allowing the scientists to see what’s going on in the universe at the subatomic level. This is research that has implications for particle physics, yes, but also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/443483/physicists-go-small-lets-put-a-particle-accelerator-on-a-chip\">computer chips\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/916677/stanford-develops-chiclet-sized-device-that-purifies-water-using-sunlight\">clean energy\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/28510/researchers-at-slac-study-promising-alternative-to-morphine\">medicine\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/99894/what-happens-when-you-zap-coral-with-the-worlds-most-powerful-x-ray-laser\">ancient weather\u003c/a>, and much, much more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When electrons move fast, they buzz. A LOT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people who come visit think that the noise is actually the fluorescents, but it’s the accelerator,” our tour guide, Rachel Spurlock, told us in the visitor alcove of SLAC’s Linear Accelerator. She’s working on her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Stanford. “That is actually the sound of our accelerator operating. Our accelerator moves 120 bunches of electrons per second.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do they pick up that much speed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A long room that you cannot see the end of. It is about 20 feet wide. On the left is a walkway for people and small vehicles. On the right side of the image, is the linear accelerator equipment, which looks like a lot of tubes and wires.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The building that houses the Linear Accelerator at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the US Department of Energy, in Menlo Park on Jan. 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Particle accelerators \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-particle-accelerators-work\">use electric fields\u003c/a> to speed up and energize a beam of particles, which are steered and focused by magnetic fields while the beam travels. Electric fields spaced around the accelerator switch from positive to negative at a given frequency, creating radio waves that accelerate particles in bunches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two long tubes stretch to what seems like infinity to the human eye at SLAC: one large aluminum tube on the bottom and a smaller copper tube on top, where the electrons are. More than 150 microwave generators called \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/media/2015-1216-0484-klystrongallery-tripodjpg\">klystrons\u003c/a> move the electrons along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The exact same thing that you have in your kitchen at home in your microwave, except about 60 times stronger,” explains Spurlock, adding that you could bake a potato in one of these klystrons in a millisecond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During WWII, physicists working in Los Alamos, New Mexico, developed the atom bomb. After WWII, Stanford physicists wanted to get a better look inside the atom. So they pitched the idea of a linear accelerator to the Atomic Energy Commission, explained here in a 1964 documentary called “The Worlds Within.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I4GxICAcBs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the following years, SLAC won three Nobel prizes for its early research, including the discovery of two fundamental particles, proving protons are made of quarks, and showing how DNA directs protein manufacturing in cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But of course, science has moved on from these first, basic lines of inquiry, and so has SLAC. The facilities on this campus are constantly being modernized to allow scientists to stay on the cutting edge of research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, SLAC functions like a high-tech hacker space. Anybody can propose a project, and if receiving the thumbs up from a research committee, do their experiment at one of the facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your proposal is accepted, you can come and use our facilities absolutely for free, as long as you publish your results,” Spurlock said. “If you don’t want to publish your results, it can get very expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, private corporations hoping to profit from the results of their research sometimes pitch experiments to SLAC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A very complicated looking instrument about the size of a car with colorful wires and tubes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The complexity of the research happening at SLAC can be overwhelming to many visitors, as one glance at this Linac Coherent Light Source instrument demonstrates. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beyond the accelerators, SLAC’s campus is full of different lab spaces doing different things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With X-ray light, we’re able to look at atoms. So we’re looking at microscopic details of what matter is doing,” said Matthias Kling, Director of Science, Research and Development at the Linac Coherent Light Source (\u003ca href=\"https://lcls.slac.stanford.edu/\">LCLS\u003c/a>) lab at SLAC. (There’s a second X-ray laser, too, at SLAC, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2023/09/18/menlo-parks-slac-turns-on-x-ray-that-can-take-images-at-the-attosecond/\">LCLS-II\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUeraeIkTmo&t=2s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know the MRI machine doctors use to get a 3D picture of your organs and tissues? Now imagine using that X-ray light that particles speeding through a linear accelerator throw off to look at your insides at the molecular level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are also trying to find ways to make the equipment smaller, cheaper, and capable of operating at room temperature so that one day, the equivalent of an MRI machine could be available to many more people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re striving to stay at that frontier. So that’s why we’re constantly thinking about, OK, ‘What is it that would enable us to answer the next big question?’” Kling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kling was done leading his part of the tour, I turned to Nelson, whose eyes were spinning as fast as mine. “I’m just blown away with the people who founded this originally. [I wonder] if they had a vision of where they would be now. If you could put them in a time machine and [ask], ‘Here you are. Did you have any concept of this little tube you built, what impact it would be having on the world?’” Nelson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But wait, there’s more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>SLAC is home to the world’s largest digital camera\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A large white room with a black cylindrical drum-shaped instrument in the middle that is about the size of a car. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, camera at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The camera is the world’s largest digital camera and will be trasnported to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the mountains of Chile, where it will be mapping the southern sky. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest digital camera has 3.2 gigapixels. That’s considerably larger than your smartphone camera. This thing is massive, the size of a 3-ton car, with a lens bigger than 5 feet in diameter. Also, it can capture a huge swath of sky with every photograph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will take images, and within 60 seconds of a shutter closing, it will do a bunch of analysis. It will do comparisons to previous images that it has, and it will detect that there’s things that are different,” SLAC LSST Camera Deputy Project Manager Travis Lange said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a very large image, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of things,” Lange said. “So every single image, you’re going to get a lot of things that are different from the previous time. There are some things in cosmology that happen very slowly. Most things, actually, right? The universe is a very slow-moving thing, but there are some things that occur very fast. Things like supernovas or asteroids that are coming through our solar system. Those kinds of things, those very transient events, are very hard to detect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11978064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11978064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two men having a conversation. One is facing the camera and wearing a blue shirt and glasses. The other is wearing a green shirt and facing away from the camera.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Travis Lange speaks with tour guest Eric Nelson about the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, camera at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This camera, which cost $200 million to construct and will be mounted on a mountaintop in \u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2024-01-astronomers-chile-scour-universe-car.html\">northern Chile\u003c/a>, can detect those transient events. Then, scientists can direct astronomers working with bigger, more powerful telescopes to point them at the thing that is happening, “and get a really in-depth image in real time,” Lange said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mind-blowing. But wait, there’s more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A race for a cleaner, greener, long-lasting battery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in a laboratory touching small objects the size of playing cards. She is wearing purple gloves. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientist Johanna Nelson Weker displays pouch cells in a battery lab. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Can we make a battery out of rust? Iron oxygen battery? Things that are ridiculously cheap that could bring the cost of storing energy down,” asked SLAC-Stanford Battery Center lead scientist Johanna Nelson Weker. She might not have the answers to those questions now, but she hopes to soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists in Weker’s lab are also trying to make things inexpensive, sustainable and free of elements that lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/ev-cobalt-mines-congo/\">child labor and strip mining\u003c/a>. This effort requires intimate and coordinated collaboration, which is \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2023-04-13-new-slac-stanford-battery-center-targets-roadblocks-sustainable-energy-transition\">a strength for SLAC and Stanford,\u003c/a> between experts in chemistry, materials science, engineering and a host of other fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, did our question-asker, Eric Nelson, understand it all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely. In fact, if you need a recap later, I’m sure I’ll be able to help. No problem at all,” he laughed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re interested in taking a public tour of SLAC, there are two to four\u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/public-tours\"> of them available each month\u003c/a>. But they’re capped at 30 people at a time, and I’m told they fill up quickly. I can’t recommend it highly enough!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Hey everyone! I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And this is Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should you find yourself driving on Interstate 280, just south of the Sand Hill Road exit, near Stanford, there is this overpass that crosses over a long, skinny building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when I say long, I do mean looooong. At nearly 2 miles, it’s one of the longest buildings on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Nelson of Petaluma has wondered about it for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>What’s that huge, long building on the side of 280 that I drive by all the time but really have no idea what it is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Turns out, drivers crossing over that long, skinny building are mere meters away from one of the most advanced technology labs in the world. A place where scientists are exploring how the universe works at the biggest and smallest levels. Inside the lab, particles travel at speeds that would put any hot rod to shame. I’m talking 669 million miles per hour, that’s just shy of the speed of light!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We called up Stanford to ask what’s up with this thing? And they said “Come on over! We give tours!” So today on the show we’re heading inside the \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/slac_factsheet_btn_08_2022_final.pdf\">SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory\u003c/a> in Menlo Park. SLAC used to stand for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, but now it’s just SLAC. Not an acronym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get ready to have your mind a little bit blown. Or a lotta bit blown, if you zoned out during high school physics class like I did. That’s all just ahead on Bay Curious! I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Today we’re exploring a massive, 426-acre campus near Stanford where scientists are conducting all sorts of cutting edge research that has implications for astronomy, clean energy, medicine and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our question asker, Eric Nelson, is along for the ride with KQED’s Rachael Myrow. She was an English major in college, so hopefully, she can explain some of this to us in plain English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Look, if you’re like me, metaphors help to get a grip on complex scientific concepts. So before we get out of the tour van to visit SLAC — that’s SLAC with a C, not with a CK like the office app — I want to make a quick stop in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Crackle of phonograph \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Just to help illustrate the basic concept behind a linear accelerator, let’s review a scientific first that happened in Palo Alto before Stanford was Stanford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a horse running\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Leland Stanford, the super rich railroad baron, bred and raced horses on the land he later built the university on. In the 1870s, Stanford hired a guy named Eadweard Muybridge to photograph those horses\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a camera clicking twice \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>To get a closer look at their strides. Closer than strides had ever been observed before. Now, Muybridge had a scientific bent to his thinking. So after some annoyingly blurry snaps he had an electric-powered battery of 12 cameras installed at Stanford’s race track, to catch a horse running past in a series of freeze frames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of an old-timey projector rolling\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Hey, I know this story! When Muybridge ran all those photographs together at high speed, he got what, today, we call a movie. The father of “motion pictures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Exactly. Now imagine a much longer racetrack. And imagine, not horses running past, but tiny, tiny subatomic particles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Buzzing sound\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>The building that houses this thing is almost two miles long and the cameras, instead of recording sunlight bouncing off horses, use ultra bright x-ray light those particles throw off to create freeze frame movies of molecules. Also, when they move fast, they buzz. A lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>That is actually the sound of our accelerator operating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>That’s Rachel Spurlock, working on her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Stanford, and our tour guide in the visitor alcove of SLAC’s Linear Accelerator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Spooky sound effect\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>This is what drivers on 280 pass over regularly — absolutely clueless — because from the outside, the linear accelerator building looks like a long, skinny, beige warehouse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>What are the pros and cons of having a linear accelerator, versus a circular one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Yeah, Nowadays, I think it would be very rare to find a linear accelerator the way we have here at SLAC. Most are built circular. But we also have some accelerator research going on here at SLAC. One portion of our original 1960s accelerator is dedicated to research to shorten the length of accelerators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>When this was built in the 1960s, they needed a two-mile long building so there’s time and space enough to “accelerate” electrons to close to the speed of light. The building is so long, you can’t see to the end of it inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Our accelerator moves 120 bunches of electrons per second.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (In scene): \u003c/b>They make a big noise for such small particles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>They do. They do. A lot of people who come visit think that the noise is actually the fluorescents, but it’s the accelerator. \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Inside the building that houses them, two long tubes stretch to what seems like infinity to the human eye — one large aluminum tube on the bottom, and a smaller copper tube on top, where the electrons are. What’s moving the electrons along? More than 150 microwave generators called “klystrons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock:\u003c/b> The exact same thing that you have in your kitchen at home in your microwave, except about 60 times stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>You could bake a potato in one of these klystrons in a millisecond. Which impressed our question asker, Eric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>I want to come here to fix my TV dinner tonight!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>The whole shebang is surrounded by a lot of yellow “caution” tape and bright, plastic, orange delineators, to keep people from touching things they’re not supposed to touch. How did this thing get here? Let’s go back to the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During WWII, physicists working in Los Alamos, New Mexico developed the atom bomb. A\u003ci>fter\u003c/i> that war, Stanford physicists wanted to get a better look \u003ci>inside\u003c/i> the atom. But just like Muybridge, they needed a specialized, cutting edge contraption to do it. So they pitched the idea of a linear accelerator to the Atomic Energy Commission, to explore the basic building blocks of the universe, as explained here in a 1964 documentary called “The Worlds Within.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival Video: \u003c/b>The largest and most expensive tool in the world, in a pastoral setting. Music. What the nation is investing in this accelerator, and the contribution which Stanford is making in terms of its land, are used to buy knowledge and fundamental understanding of nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Over the following years, SLAC won 3 Nobel prizes for its early research, including: the discovery of two fundamental particles, proving protons are made of quarks, and showing how DNA directs protein manufacturing in cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Not too shabby. But of course, science has moved on from these first, basic lines of inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Yes! Now, as then, SLAC functions like a cutting edge research \u003ci>hacker space\u003c/i>. Anybody can propose a project, and if receiving the thumbs up from a research committee, do their experiment at one of the facilities. Which are constantly being upgraded and modernized to allow for scientists to \u003ci>stay\u003c/i> on the cutting edge of research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>We no longer use our linear accelerator for those particle physics experiments that I mentioned were kind of the foundation of SLAC when it was first conceived and developed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>In fact, if you were flying over the campus, you’d see what looks like a clutch of big warehouses. Nondescript on the outside, chock full of scientific labs on the inside: wires, tubes, cylinders and tanks and such.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>If your proposal is accepted, you can come and use our facilities absolutely for free, as long as you publish your results. If you don’t want to publish your results, it can get very expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>And would those mostly be, I guess, private corporations that are hoping to profit from the results of their research?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> What kind of research happens at SLAC today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow\u003c/b> Soooo many kinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>And not just using the linear accelerators. \u003ci>Yes, plural. \u003c/i>SLAC is home to a campus full of different lab spaces doing different things, using X-rays, lasers and electron beams for groundbreaking experiments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Like what? Anything concrete a regular person would understand?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Here’s another metaphor. You know the MRI machine doctors use to get a 3-D picture of your organs and tissues?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Now imagine using that x-ray light I mentioned earlier — the x-ray light that particles speeding through a linear accelerator throw off — to look at your insides! at the molecular level!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Matthias Kling: \u003c/b>With X-ray light, we’re able to look at atoms. So we’re looking at microscopic details of what matter is doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Matthias Kling is Director of Science, Research and Development at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC. I know, Olivia, that’s a mouthful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are trying to find ways to make the equipment smaller, cheaper, and capable of operating at room temperature, so one day the equivalent of an MRI machine could be available to many more people. At their doctor’s offices, among other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Matthias Kling: \u003c/b>We’re striving to stay at that frontier. So that’s why we’re constantly thinking about, OK, ‘What is it that would enable us to answer the next big question?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Watching chemical reactions as they happen, at the molecular level, could lead to groundbreaking insights in a variety of fields, from computing to pharmaceuticals to aerospace to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Matthias was done with his part of the tour, I turned to our question asker Eric, whose eyes were spinning as fast as mine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>Any questions?\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>No, I’m just blown away with the people who founded this originally. If they had a vision of where they would be now. If you could, Like, put them in a time machine. And like, ‘Here you are. Did you have any concept of this little tube you built, what impact it would be having on the world?’ That just blows me away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>And now to a camera big enough to capture the night sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>We took a van over to a hangar where SLAC LSST Camera Deputy Project Manager Travis Lange stood with us in front of a brightly lit clean room, home to…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>The world’s \u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2024-01-astronomers-chile-scour-universe-car.html\">largest digital camera\u003c/a>. 3.2 giga pixels. Considerably larger than, you know, your iPhone camera. It is going to be mounted on a mountaintop in northern Chile. And we are using it to do a survey of the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>It’s not just that this thing is massive, the size of a 3 ton car, with a lens bigger than 5 feet in diameter. Or that it can capture a huge swath of sky with every photograph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>It will take images, and within 60 seconds of a shutter closing, it will do a bunch of analysis. It will do comparisons to previous images that it has, and it will detect that there’s things that are different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>What’s the point of a camera this big? One that costs $200 million dollars to construct?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>In a very large image, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of things. So every single image, you’re going to get a lot of things that are different from the previous time. So there are some things in cosmology that happen very slowly. Most things, actually, right? The universe is a very slow moving thing. But there are some things that occur very fast. So things like super novaes. Or asteroids that are coming through our solar system. So those kind of things, those very transient events, are very hard to detect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>This camera can detect them, and then scientists can direct astronomers working with bigger, more powerful telescopes to point them at the thing that is happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>And get a really in depth image in real time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Rachael, that’s mind blowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> But wait, there’s more! You might be wondering at this point whether anything SLAC researchers are working on could be ready for the rest of us to use in \u003ci>the near future\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Yes, yes I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> That’s where Johanna Nelson Weker comes in. She’s a lead scientist at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center. She and her colleagues are researching cleaner, greener forms of energy storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>One of the goals for making a battery for, not a vehicle, but putting it onto the grid, is for it to be longer duration than a standard lithium ion battery. If you want to store energy for more than 8 hours, lithium ion battery technology’s not good. It’s way too expensive and it doesn’t last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Scientists in Weker’s lab are also trying to make things inexpensive, sustainable and free of elements that lead to child labor and strip mining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>So we’re looking at things that are much cheaper. Can we make a battery out of rust, for example? Iron oxygen battery? Things that are, you know, ridiculously cheap, that you could bring the cost of storing energy down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>Does that make the batteries more sustainable, more easily disposed of, et cetera, et cetera?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>Not necessarily, but that’s also a goal we have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Rachael, this all sounds super cool. But I’m overwhelmed! Did our question asker Eric understand it all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>Absolutely. In fact, if you need a recap later, I’m sure I’ll be able to help, provide a recap. No problem at all. \u003ci>(Laughing)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> I hope I haven’t scared y’all off — because this is an awesome tour — and there are two to four of them a month available to the public. But they’re capped at 30 people at a time and I’m told they fill up pretty quick. Can’t recommend it highly enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> KQED’s Rachael Myrow, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Big thanks to Eric Nelson for asking this week’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are enjoying Bay Curious, would you do me a favor? Head to Bay Curious in the listening app of your choice, make sure you subscribe and make sure you turn on your auto downloads. That way you’re automatically getting every episode as soon as it comes out. And! It would be so nice if you could leave a rating and review for the show. You can do that on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Five stars. A written review. Let us know what you’re enjoying about the show so we can bring you even more of it. Those are much appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has done so already. I know it only takes a minute, but wow does that minute mean a lot to us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Carly Severn, Bianca Taylor, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you know one of the longest buildings \u003cem>on the planet\u003c/em> is in Menlo Park? And drivers speeding along Interstate 280, near Sand Hill Road, pass mere meters above it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Eric Nelson of Petaluma wanted to know more about the nearly 2-mile-long structure. He asked, “What’s that huge, long building on the side of 280 that I drive by all the time but really have no idea what it is?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out the \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/slac_factsheet_btn_08_2022_final.pdf\">SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory\u003c/a> is home to a scientific marvel that pushes particles to travel close to the speed of light. We called up Stanford, which is home to SLAC — SLAC used to stand for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, but now it’s just SLAC. Not an acronym — and they said the equivalent of, “Come on over! We give tours!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11978061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11978061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"A woman faces a monitor that is displaying information about the linear accelerator. She is pointing at a part of the screen with her finger. You cannot see her face, only the back of her head. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-21-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student researcher Rachel Spurlock explains the Linear Accelerator at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the US Department of Energy, in Menlo Park on Jan. 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Not one lab but many\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Let’s start with the fact that SLAC is big. It’s a \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/about/lab-overview\">426-acre campus\u003c/a> near Stanford University is made up of several facilities where scientists are conducting all sorts of cutting-edge research. That long, skinny building Eric noticed is just one of the facilities — the linear accelerator. It’s not the only particle accelerator in the world, but it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/quest/17535/homegrown-particle-accelerators\">one of the first.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building that houses this thing is almost two miles long. Cameras inside record the ultra-bright X-ray light that particles throw off to create freeze-frame movies of molecules, allowing the scientists to see what’s going on in the universe at the subatomic level. This is research that has implications for particle physics, yes, but also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/443483/physicists-go-small-lets-put-a-particle-accelerator-on-a-chip\">computer chips\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/916677/stanford-develops-chiclet-sized-device-that-purifies-water-using-sunlight\">clean energy\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/28510/researchers-at-slac-study-promising-alternative-to-morphine\">medicine\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/99894/what-happens-when-you-zap-coral-with-the-worlds-most-powerful-x-ray-laser\">ancient weather\u003c/a>, and much, much more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When electrons move fast, they buzz. A LOT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of people who come visit think that the noise is actually the fluorescents, but it’s the accelerator,” our tour guide, Rachel Spurlock, told us in the visitor alcove of SLAC’s Linear Accelerator. She’s working on her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Stanford. “That is actually the sound of our accelerator operating. Our accelerator moves 120 bunches of electrons per second.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do they pick up that much speed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A long room that you cannot see the end of. It is about 20 feet wide. On the left is a walkway for people and small vehicles. On the right side of the image, is the linear accelerator equipment, which looks like a lot of tubes and wires.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-20-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The building that houses the Linear Accelerator at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the US Department of Energy, in Menlo Park on Jan. 29, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Particle accelerators \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-particle-accelerators-work\">use electric fields\u003c/a> to speed up and energize a beam of particles, which are steered and focused by magnetic fields while the beam travels. Electric fields spaced around the accelerator switch from positive to negative at a given frequency, creating radio waves that accelerate particles in bunches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two long tubes stretch to what seems like infinity to the human eye at SLAC: one large aluminum tube on the bottom and a smaller copper tube on top, where the electrons are. More than 150 microwave generators called \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/media/2015-1216-0484-klystrongallery-tripodjpg\">klystrons\u003c/a> move the electrons along.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The exact same thing that you have in your kitchen at home in your microwave, except about 60 times stronger,” explains Spurlock, adding that you could bake a potato in one of these klystrons in a millisecond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During WWII, physicists working in Los Alamos, New Mexico, developed the atom bomb. After WWII, Stanford physicists wanted to get a better look inside the atom. So they pitched the idea of a linear accelerator to the Atomic Energy Commission, explained here in a 1964 documentary called “The Worlds Within.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/9I4GxICAcBs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/9I4GxICAcBs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Over the following years, SLAC won three Nobel prizes for its early research, including the discovery of two fundamental particles, proving protons are made of quarks, and showing how DNA directs protein manufacturing in cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But of course, science has moved on from these first, basic lines of inquiry, and so has SLAC. The facilities on this campus are constantly being modernized to allow scientists to stay on the cutting edge of research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, SLAC functions like a high-tech hacker space. Anybody can propose a project, and if receiving the thumbs up from a research committee, do their experiment at one of the facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your proposal is accepted, you can come and use our facilities absolutely for free, as long as you publish your results,” Spurlock said. “If you don’t want to publish your results, it can get very expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, private corporations hoping to profit from the results of their research sometimes pitch experiments to SLAC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A very complicated looking instrument about the size of a car with colorful wires and tubes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-46-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The complexity of the research happening at SLAC can be overwhelming to many visitors, as one glance at this Linac Coherent Light Source instrument demonstrates. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>The world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Beyond the accelerators, SLAC’s campus is full of different lab spaces doing different things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With X-ray light, we’re able to look at atoms. So we’re looking at microscopic details of what matter is doing,” said Matthias Kling, Director of Science, Research and Development at the Linac Coherent Light Source (\u003ca href=\"https://lcls.slac.stanford.edu/\">LCLS\u003c/a>) lab at SLAC. (There’s a second X-ray laser, too, at SLAC, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2023/09/18/menlo-parks-slac-turns-on-x-ray-that-can-take-images-at-the-attosecond/\">LCLS-II\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/kUeraeIkTmo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/kUeraeIkTmo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>You know the MRI machine doctors use to get a 3D picture of your organs and tissues? Now imagine using that X-ray light that particles speeding through a linear accelerator throw off to look at your insides at the molecular level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are also trying to find ways to make the equipment smaller, cheaper, and capable of operating at room temperature so that one day, the equivalent of an MRI machine could be available to many more people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re striving to stay at that frontier. So that’s why we’re constantly thinking about, OK, ‘What is it that would enable us to answer the next big question?’” Kling said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Kling was done leading his part of the tour, I turned to Nelson, whose eyes were spinning as fast as mine. “I’m just blown away with the people who founded this originally. [I wonder] if they had a vision of where they would be now. If you could put them in a time machine and [ask], ‘Here you are. Did you have any concept of this little tube you built, what impact it would be having on the world?’” Nelson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But wait, there’s more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>SLAC is home to the world’s largest digital camera\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A large white room with a black cylindrical drum-shaped instrument in the middle that is about the size of a car. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-56-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, camera at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The camera is the world’s largest digital camera and will be trasnported to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the mountains of Chile, where it will be mapping the southern sky. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The world’s largest digital camera has 3.2 gigapixels. That’s considerably larger than your smartphone camera. This thing is massive, the size of a 3-ton car, with a lens bigger than 5 feet in diameter. Also, it can capture a huge swath of sky with every photograph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It will take images, and within 60 seconds of a shutter closing, it will do a bunch of analysis. It will do comparisons to previous images that it has, and it will detect that there’s things that are different,” SLAC LSST Camera Deputy Project Manager Travis Lange said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a very large image, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of things,” Lange said. “So every single image, you’re going to get a lot of things that are different from the previous time. There are some things in cosmology that happen very slowly. Most things, actually, right? The universe is a very slow-moving thing, but there are some things that occur very fast. Things like supernovas or asteroids that are coming through our solar system. Those kinds of things, those very transient events, are very hard to detect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11978064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11978064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut.jpg\" alt=\"Two men having a conversation. One is facing the camera and wearing a blue shirt and glasses. The other is wearing a green shirt and facing away from the camera.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/03/240129-SLAC-61-BL_qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Travis Lange speaks with tour guest Eric Nelson about the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, camera at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This camera, which cost $200 million to construct and will be mounted on a mountaintop in \u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2024-01-astronomers-chile-scour-universe-car.html\">northern Chile\u003c/a>, can detect those transient events. Then, scientists can direct astronomers working with bigger, more powerful telescopes to point them at the thing that is happening, “and get a really in-depth image in real time,” Lange said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mind-blowing. But wait, there’s more.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A race for a cleaner, greener, long-lasting battery\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11975074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11975074\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"A woman stands in a laboratory touching small objects the size of playing cards. She is wearing purple gloves. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240129-SLAC-86-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientist Johanna Nelson Weker displays pouch cells in a battery lab. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Can we make a battery out of rust? Iron oxygen battery? Things that are ridiculously cheap that could bring the cost of storing energy down,” asked SLAC-Stanford Battery Center lead scientist Johanna Nelson Weker. She might not have the answers to those questions now, but she hopes to soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists in Weker’s lab are also trying to make things inexpensive, sustainable and free of elements that lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/ev-cobalt-mines-congo/\">child labor and strip mining\u003c/a>. This effort requires intimate and coordinated collaboration, which is \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2023-04-13-new-slac-stanford-battery-center-targets-roadblocks-sustainable-energy-transition\">a strength for SLAC and Stanford,\u003c/a> between experts in chemistry, materials science, engineering and a host of other fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, did our question-asker, Eric Nelson, understand it all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Absolutely. In fact, if you need a recap later, I’m sure I’ll be able to help. No problem at all,” he laughed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re interested in taking a public tour of SLAC, there are two to four\u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/public-tours\"> of them available each month\u003c/a>. But they’re capped at 30 people at a time, and I’m told they fill up quickly. I can’t recommend it highly enough!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Hey everyone! I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And this is Bay Curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should you find yourself driving on Interstate 280, just south of the Sand Hill Road exit, near Stanford, there is this overpass that crosses over a long, skinny building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when I say long, I do mean looooong. At nearly 2 miles, it’s one of the longest buildings on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Nelson of Petaluma has wondered about it for years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>What’s that huge, long building on the side of 280 that I drive by all the time but really have no idea what it is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Turns out, drivers crossing over that long, skinny building are mere meters away from one of the most advanced technology labs in the world. A place where scientists are exploring how the universe works at the biggest and smallest levels. Inside the lab, particles travel at speeds that would put any hot rod to shame. I’m talking 669 million miles per hour, that’s just shy of the speed of light!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We called up Stanford to ask what’s up with this thing? And they said “Come on over! We give tours!” So today on the show we’re heading inside the \u003ca href=\"https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/slac_factsheet_btn_08_2022_final.pdf\">SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory\u003c/a> in Menlo Park. SLAC used to stand for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, but now it’s just SLAC. Not an acronym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get ready to have your mind a little bit blown. Or a lotta bit blown, if you zoned out during high school physics class like I did. That’s all just ahead on Bay Curious! I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Today we’re exploring a massive, 426-acre campus near Stanford where scientists are conducting all sorts of cutting edge research that has implications for astronomy, clean energy, medicine and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our question asker, Eric Nelson, is along for the ride with KQED’s Rachael Myrow. She was an English major in college, so hopefully, she can explain some of this to us in plain English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Look, if you’re like me, metaphors help to get a grip on complex scientific concepts. So before we get out of the tour van to visit SLAC — that’s SLAC with a C, not with a CK like the office app — I want to make a quick stop in the 19th century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Crackle of phonograph \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Just to help illustrate the basic concept behind a linear accelerator, let’s review a scientific first that happened in Palo Alto before Stanford was Stanford.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a horse running\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Leland Stanford, the super rich railroad baron, bred and raced horses on the land he later built the university on. In the 1870s, Stanford hired a guy named Eadweard Muybridge to photograph those horses\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of a camera clicking twice \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>To get a closer look at their strides. Closer than strides had ever been observed before. Now, Muybridge had a scientific bent to his thinking. So after some annoyingly blurry snaps he had an electric-powered battery of 12 cameras installed at Stanford’s race track, to catch a horse running past in a series of freeze frames.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of an old-timey projector rolling\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Hey, I know this story! When Muybridge ran all those photographs together at high speed, he got what, today, we call a movie. The father of “motion pictures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Exactly. Now imagine a much longer racetrack. And imagine, not horses running past, but tiny, tiny subatomic particles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Buzzing sound\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>The building that houses this thing is almost two miles long and the cameras, instead of recording sunlight bouncing off horses, use ultra bright x-ray light those particles throw off to create freeze frame movies of molecules. Also, when they move fast, they buzz. A lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>That is actually the sound of our accelerator operating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>That’s Rachel Spurlock, working on her PhD in Chemical Engineering at Stanford, and our tour guide in the visitor alcove of SLAC’s Linear Accelerator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Spooky sound effect\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>This is what drivers on 280 pass over regularly — absolutely clueless — because from the outside, the linear accelerator building looks like a long, skinny, beige warehouse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>What are the pros and cons of having a linear accelerator, versus a circular one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Yeah, Nowadays, I think it would be very rare to find a linear accelerator the way we have here at SLAC. Most are built circular. But we also have some accelerator research going on here at SLAC. One portion of our original 1960s accelerator is dedicated to research to shorten the length of accelerators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>When this was built in the 1960s, they needed a two-mile long building so there’s time and space enough to “accelerate” electrons to close to the speed of light. The building is so long, you can’t see to the end of it inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Our accelerator moves 120 bunches of electrons per second.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (In scene): \u003c/b>They make a big noise for such small particles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>They do. They do. A lot of people who come visit think that the noise is actually the fluorescents, but it’s the accelerator. \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Inside the building that houses them, two long tubes stretch to what seems like infinity to the human eye — one large aluminum tube on the bottom, and a smaller copper tube on top, where the electrons are. What’s moving the electrons along? More than 150 microwave generators called “klystrons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock:\u003c/b> The exact same thing that you have in your kitchen at home in your microwave, except about 60 times stronger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>You could bake a potato in one of these klystrons in a millisecond. Which impressed our question asker, Eric.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>I want to come here to fix my TV dinner tonight!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>The whole shebang is surrounded by a lot of yellow “caution” tape and bright, plastic, orange delineators, to keep people from touching things they’re not supposed to touch. How did this thing get here? Let’s go back to the end of World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During WWII, physicists working in Los Alamos, New Mexico developed the atom bomb. A\u003ci>fter\u003c/i> that war, Stanford physicists wanted to get a better look \u003ci>inside\u003c/i> the atom. But just like Muybridge, they needed a specialized, cutting edge contraption to do it. So they pitched the idea of a linear accelerator to the Atomic Energy Commission, to explore the basic building blocks of the universe, as explained here in a 1964 documentary called “The Worlds Within.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Archival Video: \u003c/b>The largest and most expensive tool in the world, in a pastoral setting. Music. What the nation is investing in this accelerator, and the contribution which Stanford is making in terms of its land, are used to buy knowledge and fundamental understanding of nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Over the following years, SLAC won 3 Nobel prizes for its early research, including: the discovery of two fundamental particles, proving protons are made of quarks, and showing how DNA directs protein manufacturing in cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Not too shabby. But of course, science has moved on from these first, basic lines of inquiry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Yes! Now, as then, SLAC functions like a cutting edge research \u003ci>hacker space\u003c/i>. Anybody can propose a project, and if receiving the thumbs up from a research committee, do their experiment at one of the facilities. Which are constantly being upgraded and modernized to allow for scientists to \u003ci>stay\u003c/i> on the cutting edge of research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>We no longer use our linear accelerator for those particle physics experiments that I mentioned were kind of the foundation of SLAC when it was first conceived and developed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>In fact, if you were flying over the campus, you’d see what looks like a clutch of big warehouses. Nondescript on the outside, chock full of scientific labs on the inside: wires, tubes, cylinders and tanks and such.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>If your proposal is accepted, you can come and use our facilities absolutely for free, as long as you publish your results. If you don’t want to publish your results, it can get very expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>And would those mostly be, I guess, private corporations that are hoping to profit from the results of their research?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel Spurlock: \u003c/b>Exactly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> What kind of research happens at SLAC today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow\u003c/b> Soooo many kinds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>And not just using the linear accelerators. \u003ci>Yes, plural. \u003c/i>SLAC is home to a campus full of different lab spaces doing different things, using X-rays, lasers and electron beams for groundbreaking experiments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Like what? Anything concrete a regular person would understand?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Here’s another metaphor. You know the MRI machine doctors use to get a 3-D picture of your organs and tissues?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Now imagine using that x-ray light I mentioned earlier — the x-ray light that particles speeding through a linear accelerator throw off — to look at your insides! at the molecular level!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Matthias Kling: \u003c/b>With X-ray light, we’re able to look at atoms. So we’re looking at microscopic details of what matter is doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Matthias Kling is Director of Science, Research and Development at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC. I know, Olivia, that’s a mouthful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists are trying to find ways to make the equipment smaller, cheaper, and capable of operating at room temperature, so one day the equivalent of an MRI machine could be available to many more people. At their doctor’s offices, among other places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Matthias Kling: \u003c/b>We’re striving to stay at that frontier. So that’s why we’re constantly thinking about, OK, ‘What is it that would enable us to answer the next big question?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>Watching chemical reactions as they happen, at the molecular level, could lead to groundbreaking insights in a variety of fields, from computing to pharmaceuticals to aerospace to clean energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Matthias was done with his part of the tour, I turned to our question asker Eric, whose eyes were spinning as fast as mine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>Any questions?\u003cbr>\n\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>No, I’m just blown away with the people who founded this originally. If they had a vision of where they would be now. If you could, Like, put them in a time machine. And like, ‘Here you are. Did you have any concept of this little tube you built, what impact it would be having on the world?’ That just blows me away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>And now to a camera big enough to capture the night sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>We took a van over to a hangar where SLAC LSST Camera Deputy Project Manager Travis Lange stood with us in front of a brightly lit clean room, home to…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>The world’s \u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2024-01-astronomers-chile-scour-universe-car.html\">largest digital camera\u003c/a>. 3.2 giga pixels. Considerably larger than, you know, your iPhone camera. It is going to be mounted on a mountaintop in northern Chile. And we are using it to do a survey of the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>It’s not just that this thing is massive, the size of a 3 ton car, with a lens bigger than 5 feet in diameter. Or that it can capture a huge swath of sky with every photograph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>It will take images, and within 60 seconds of a shutter closing, it will do a bunch of analysis. It will do comparisons to previous images that it has, and it will detect that there’s things that are different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>What’s the point of a camera this big? One that costs $200 million dollars to construct?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>In a very large image, there’s going to be thousands and thousands of things. So every single image, you’re going to get a lot of things that are different from the previous time. So there are some things in cosmology that happen very slowly. Most things, actually, right? The universe is a very slow moving thing. But there are some things that occur very fast. So things like super novaes. Or asteroids that are coming through our solar system. So those kind of things, those very transient events, are very hard to detect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>This camera can detect them, and then scientists can direct astronomers working with bigger, more powerful telescopes to point them at the thing that is happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Travis Lange: \u003c/b>And get a really in depth image in real time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Rachael, that’s mind blowing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> But wait, there’s more! You might be wondering at this point whether anything SLAC researchers are working on could be ready for the rest of us to use in \u003ci>the near future\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Yes, yes I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> That’s where Johanna Nelson Weker comes in. She’s a lead scientist at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center. She and her colleagues are researching cleaner, greener forms of energy storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>One of the goals for making a battery for, not a vehicle, but putting it onto the grid, is for it to be longer duration than a standard lithium ion battery. If you want to store energy for more than 8 hours, lithium ion battery technology’s not good. It’s way too expensive and it doesn’t last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> Scientists in Weker’s lab are also trying to make things inexpensive, sustainable and free of elements that lead to child labor and strip mining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>So we’re looking at things that are much cheaper. Can we make a battery out of rust, for example? Iron oxygen battery? Things that are, you know, ridiculously cheap, that you could bring the cost of storing energy down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow (in scene): \u003c/b>Does that make the batteries more sustainable, more easily disposed of, et cetera, et cetera?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Johanna Nelson Weker: \u003c/b>Not necessarily, but that’s also a goal we have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Rachael, this all sounds super cool. But I’m overwhelmed! Did our question asker Eric understand it all?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Nelson: \u003c/b>Absolutely. In fact, if you need a recap later, I’m sure I’ll be able to help, provide a recap. No problem at all. \u003ci>(Laughing)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b> I hope I haven’t scared y’all off — because this is an awesome tour — and there are two to four of them a month available to the public. But they’re capped at 30 people at a time and I’m told they fill up pretty quick. Can’t recommend it highly enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> KQED’s Rachael Myrow, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> Big thanks to Eric Nelson for asking this week’s question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are enjoying Bay Curious, would you do me a favor? Head to Bay Curious in the listening app of your choice, make sure you subscribe and make sure you turn on your auto downloads. That way you’re automatically getting every episode as soon as it comes out. And! It would be so nice if you could leave a rating and review for the show. You can do that on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Five stars. A written review. Let us know what you’re enjoying about the show so we can bring you even more of it. Those are much appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has done so already. I know it only takes a minute, but wow does that minute mean a lot to us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Carly Severn, Bianca Taylor, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Why Is It So Hard To Fix Our Own Electronics?",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an all too common experience — that new refrigerator, computer or blender stops working and no amount of troubleshooting can fix it. Maybe you spend some time on the phone with an IT specialist or a repair person comes out to take a look. But often it’s easier and cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1479508772\" width=\"100%\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not by accident. Over the years, manufacturers have made it harder for us to fix our own electronics by practicing what’s called “repair monopoly.” They make it hard to find the information, tools and parts necessary for us to fix our own stuff. But all that might be changing. A new “Right to Repair” law goes into effect in California July 1, which will require manufacturers to make those resources available for a certain amount of time. In the meantime, there’s a thriving “Fix-It” community in the Bay Area, ready to help you fix your own stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nOlivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> It all started on the day before Thanksgiving. The one day of the year that you really just need everything in your kitchen to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My dishwasher finished its cycle and I pulled open the door. Inside — I found two racks of filthy dishes, like worse than when I’d put them in — and 6 inches of really gross standing water in the bottom of the machine. I spent some time troubleshooting, but no luck. The dishwasher wouldn’t drain, or even really respond to any of the buttons I was frantically trying to mash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>(phone ringing)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We put in a call to our landlord. A few days later — after a lavish Thanksgiving meal where we hand washed every single pot, pan, dish, glass and fork — a service person came out. Only to deem this dishwasher, which was only a few years old, gone for good. Beyond repair. Off to the landfill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, this is an unfortunate story on its own … but what really grinds my gears is that this is the \u003ci>third\u003c/i> dishwasher we’ve had since we started renting our place 8 years ago. Why can’t these things be repaired?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bay Curious theme music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today on Bay Curious we want to share an episode from our sister podcast, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a> … all about a new law that will go into effect in California this year that should help make it more possible to fix our stuff! Plus, we’ll take a trip to a fix-it clinic in Redwood City, where a growing right to repair movement is up and running. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and stick around at the end of the episode for more on an event all about something else — your clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> I’m handing this one over to Ericka Cruz-Guevara, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">host of The Bay podcast\u003c/a>, and reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, who kicks things off with a trip to the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So I went to a fix it clinic at the Redwood City Library…Walking in there? I mean, it’s this really kind of fun environment. It’s a little bit chaotic, but it’s very high energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s about a dozen and a half tables there, and they’ve got all sorts of appliances, electronics. Vacuums, fans, air purifiers, and they’re sort of splayed open. And there’s a fix it coach, which is essentially a volunteer alongside people who have brought these items in. And they’re got their sleeves rolled up and they’re digging in and they’re trying to diagnose and fix whatever’s wrong with the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Fix it. Clinics are sort of these pop up events. They’re facilitated by volunteers. And these volunteers are basically handy people who are down to spend a Saturday morning helping people fix their things. And the kind of people that are coming in are just everyday people. And they have something, an appliance, an electronic that they really like, but it’s broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Fix it coaches are basically standing over your shoulder and telling you what to do, and then the person who brings in the item is performing the repair mostly themselves. So it’s really much more of an educational opportunity than just sort of a repair service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>And you mentioned this is primarily run by volunteers. Who exactly is running these clinics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So Peter Mui started, Fix It clinic back in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>It’s incumbent on us at this point in the planet to keep all of our durable goods in service in place as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Since then, it’s grown immensely. And now this year, Fix It clinic has partnered with the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability to bring a fix it clinic to a different San Mateo County library every month this year. And so, is this your job?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>No. This is this is a passion. Now, fix a clinic is a hobby of mine that’s gotten way out of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, I know you talked with some folks there who were there to get their stuff fixed. Can you tell me about Nancy Harris?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. So, Nancy Harris lives in Moss Beach, which is about 25 miles away. It’s on the coast. And she brought in this magic bullet blender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>And I’m so tired of buying a new one. I would love to fix this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>All right, let’s see. I’ve worked on one of the bigger ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>This was actually the fourth magic bullet blender that she’s owned. As she walked in, she was matched with this volunteer named Alex Schmitt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>And Alex Schmitt lives in the county. Works in software. Says he likes to tinker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>There is one of these that the tabs may have broken off. And it looks like there may be jams. Oh. So.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So, Nancy basically described the problem. When she plugs it in, the motor of the blender just starts whirring immediately, and she can’t get it to turn off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>When you’ve got it plugged in, it’s supposed to not immediately start, but start when you put the top on and screw it and you’re ready to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Alex says, okay, well, let’s let’s take a look. And within a few minutes, really, he diagnoses the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>So now the question is, will it spin the way that you’re having the issue with. Yeah it will. Okay. You mentioned it leaks. Yes. So whatever whatever leaked in there has sort of gummed up these plastic elements that depress the switch on the bottom to the point that they got stuck on the lower end. And so it was always on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So the all of the gunk, all of the smoothie and coffee and all the things that Nancy Harris has blended over the past few years has sort of seeped down into this switch that activates the motor. So it was actually diagnosed really quickly and simply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>And that would do it for you. But the big thing is cleaning, and I’m guessing we have some Q-tips and some alcohol that we can work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Okay. Did she get it fixed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. So it took her and Alex Schmitt about an hour to fix the blender, and it did end up getting fixed. Basically, it just needed to be cleaned. They really just went in there with cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol and sort of freed up all the sticky stuff that was making the motor stuck in the on position. They even found like a small family of bugs living in the motor. So there’s all these little discoveries that they make along the way. And.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, what happened when Nancy and Alex got the magic bullet working again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>As Nancy Harris walked out with her fixed to working magic bullet blender, volunteers took the magic bullet blender, held it aloft and yelled, you know, magic bullet blender fixed. Nancy Harris, she said she was overjoyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>We fixed something that had been broken and driving me crazy for at least a year and a half. It just saved me a lot of time and energy, and I learned how to fix it myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You know, you could really see this, like, sort of contagious look of excitement and happiness. And that’s kind of shared by the whole room when you know something gets fixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>It’s not saves you, what, 100, $200 every couple of years when this happens again, I’m really, really, really happy about it. And I feel very empowered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Coming up, how exactly have manufacturers made it harder for us to fix our own stuff? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>It does for some reason, also feel like a thing of the past. Like this idea that we as consumers can fix things ourselves. Like, I mean, I’m just thinking also about my partner’s laptop, which he’s been trying to get fixed for like the past two weeks. And at this point he’s like, God, I should just buy a new laptop at this point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. I mean, what you’re talking about is what’s called a repair monopoly. Basically, a manufacturer will, you know, not make their parts or tools or information necessary to repair their item accessible to consumers, basically forcing people to have to go to them to, get their thing repaired. Some companies will use, like, proprietary screw heads to put their devices together, or they’re not designed to be serviced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s even something called parts pairing with electronics, where parts are paired to the serial number of your, say, computer. And if you put in a different part, it will throw an error code when you know you try to turn it back on. There’s also this idea of planned obsolescence, right, where, you know, companies are basically making things to break because it’s more profitable for them to sell you something new as opposed to have you repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So, you know, manufacturers make it harder to repair their things, which means that your local shop can’t repair them. So then there’s, you know, these shops go out of business, and pretty soon the only place you can get the thing repaired is the company that made it. They can charge whatever they want, they can take as long as they want, or they can tell you it’s not able to be repaired, even if maybe it is, and force you to buy a new one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, how then is all have people actually tried to combat this disposable culture, this culture of buying new? On a larger scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Over the past decade, really? And earlier than that as well, we’ve started to see this rise of what’s called the right to repair movement. And basically, in a nutshell, right to repair says if you bought an item, you have the right to repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>And tell me what that has looked like in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So we’re seeing a lot of people interested at the community level in repairing their own things, but it’s actually translated into a movement in state governments to put this kind of legislation on the books. So here in California last year, there was a law passed, and it’s basically a right to repair law goes into effect July 1st this year. And so it changed how manufacturers have to make repair accessible basically to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Right now, consumers in California are protected by this thing called the song Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. And basically that says that if a manufacturer makes an implied or expressed warranty on a product, then they need to make the parts, tools, and information necessary to repair that item available for a certain amount of years after the last model is produced, depending on how much that item costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>This new California law is really moving that forward. So this California law applies to appliances and electronics, and it basically says that if an item cost between $50 and 9999, then the manufacturer has to make the parts, tools and information necessary to repair that item available for three years after the last production date of the model. If that item is more than 9999, then the manufacturer needs to make the parts, tools, and information available for seven years after the last production date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s a lot of hope in the right to repair movement that with a state like California passing a right to repair law, that it’s really going to build momentum in the in the nationwide right to repair movement. And we’re starting to see that this year. So far, 24 states are considering right to repair legislation. And that’s just at the last count.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>So it sounds like this law is really about giving people the tools to fix things themselves. Was there any pushback on this law?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. I mean, writer repair gets a lot of pushback, and it’s mostly from, you know, big electronics companies like Apple. And then you have ag equipment companies like John Deere have historically pushed back against right to repair legislation. Apple lobbied heavily against this law and then came on in support of it at the last second, when they saw that it had basically, a guaranteed chance of passing or that it was going to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Coming back to the Fixit clinic that you went to in Redwood City. I imagine we’re going to see more of these kinds of clinics. In other cities, it seems like there’s already a lot of interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s definitely possible. The San Mateo County Office of Sustainability is partnering with the library system there to bring a different fix it clinic every month to different libraries in the county. Fix it clinic also has a presence on on the social platform discord. Have hundreds of members on that platform. And the founder of Fix It clinic, Peter Mui:, actually told me that they have people in Africa or Europe and spread out all throughout the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>So we basically, during the pandemic, launched a Global Fixers server on discord that allowed us to extend repair to anybody on the planet who has an internet connection and can get on discord.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I spoke with a representative from the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, and she said that basically their demand is far exceeding capacity. There’s a ton of interest in these kinds of events throughout San Mateo County. And as we’re seeing sort of throughout the nation in the world at this point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I think as humans, really, we have this natural inclination to want to fix things. Peter Mui: would say that we are repairers at heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>Because when that thing starts working again and they are the ones who fixed it, you know, it’s like Easter, you know, it’s really it’s a really wonderful feeling that we don’t want to deprive anybody of. You want to empower these people to be able to repair stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I mean, personally, you know, I, I used to have an old pickup truck, and I actually replaced the clutch on my pickup truck one time, and I went to my mechanic friend and told him about the experience. And he said, you know, that’s a feeling you can’t buy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Azul, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You’re very welcome. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That was Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, a reporter for KQED, and Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of the podcast, The Bay. If you like what you heard, check out more episodes on The Bay’s podcast feed. They are an awesome news-focused companion to your Bay Curious listening, a bit like The Daily, but for local news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this episode got you thinking you’d like to learn more about how to repair your own stuff, we’ve got an event for you. Next Thursday, March 14th, \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">KQED is hosting a sustainable fashion event\u003c/a>. Experts will be on hand who will teach you how to mend your clothes and style them in new and exciting ways. We’ll put a link in our show notes or you can look for it at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">kqed.org/live\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That episode was produced by Maria Esquinca, Alan Montecillo and Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Engineering support from Brendan Willard and Christopher Beale. The rest of the Bay Curious team includes Katrina Schwartz and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s an all too common experience — that new refrigerator, computer or blender stops working and no amount of troubleshooting can fix it. Maybe you spend some time on the phone with an IT specialist or a repair person comes out to take a look. But often it’s easier and cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1479508772\" width=\"100%\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not by accident. Over the years, manufacturers have made it harder for us to fix our own electronics by practicing what’s called “repair monopoly.” They make it hard to find the information, tools and parts necessary for us to fix our own stuff. But all that might be changing. A new “Right to Repair” law goes into effect in California July 1, which will require manufacturers to make those resources available for a certain amount of time. In the meantime, there’s a thriving “Fix-It” community in the Bay Area, ready to help you fix your own stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nOlivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> It all started on the day before Thanksgiving. The one day of the year that you really just need everything in your kitchen to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My dishwasher finished its cycle and I pulled open the door. Inside — I found two racks of filthy dishes, like worse than when I’d put them in — and 6 inches of really gross standing water in the bottom of the machine. I spent some time troubleshooting, but no luck. The dishwasher wouldn’t drain, or even really respond to any of the buttons I was frantically trying to mash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>(phone ringing)\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We put in a call to our landlord. A few days later — after a lavish Thanksgiving meal where we hand washed every single pot, pan, dish, glass and fork — a service person came out. Only to deem this dishwasher, which was only a few years old, gone for good. Beyond repair. Off to the landfill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, this is an unfortunate story on its own … but what really grinds my gears is that this is the \u003ci>third\u003c/i> dishwasher we’ve had since we started renting our place 8 years ago. Why can’t these things be repaired?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bay Curious theme music starts\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Today on Bay Curious we want to share an episode from our sister podcast, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">The Bay\u003c/a> … all about a new law that will go into effect in California this year that should help make it more possible to fix our stuff! Plus, we’ll take a trip to a fix-it clinic in Redwood City, where a growing right to repair movement is up and running. I’m Olivia Allen-Price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oh and stick around at the end of the episode for more on an event all about something else — your clothes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sponsor message\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> I’m handing this one over to Ericka Cruz-Guevara, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/thebay\">host of The Bay podcast\u003c/a>, and reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, who kicks things off with a trip to the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So I went to a fix it clinic at the Redwood City Library…Walking in there? I mean, it’s this really kind of fun environment. It’s a little bit chaotic, but it’s very high energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s about a dozen and a half tables there, and they’ve got all sorts of appliances, electronics. Vacuums, fans, air purifiers, and they’re sort of splayed open. And there’s a fix it coach, which is essentially a volunteer alongside people who have brought these items in. And they’re got their sleeves rolled up and they’re digging in and they’re trying to diagnose and fix whatever’s wrong with the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Fix it. Clinics are sort of these pop up events. They’re facilitated by volunteers. And these volunteers are basically handy people who are down to spend a Saturday morning helping people fix their things. And the kind of people that are coming in are just everyday people. And they have something, an appliance, an electronic that they really like, but it’s broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Fix it coaches are basically standing over your shoulder and telling you what to do, and then the person who brings in the item is performing the repair mostly themselves. So it’s really much more of an educational opportunity than just sort of a repair service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>And you mentioned this is primarily run by volunteers. Who exactly is running these clinics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So Peter Mui started, Fix It clinic back in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>It’s incumbent on us at this point in the planet to keep all of our durable goods in service in place as long as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Since then, it’s grown immensely. And now this year, Fix It clinic has partnered with the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability to bring a fix it clinic to a different San Mateo County library every month this year. And so, is this your job?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>No. This is this is a passion. Now, fix a clinic is a hobby of mine that’s gotten way out of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, I know you talked with some folks there who were there to get their stuff fixed. Can you tell me about Nancy Harris?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. So, Nancy Harris lives in Moss Beach, which is about 25 miles away. It’s on the coast. And she brought in this magic bullet blender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>And I’m so tired of buying a new one. I would love to fix this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>All right, let’s see. I’ve worked on one of the bigger ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>This was actually the fourth magic bullet blender that she’s owned. As she walked in, she was matched with this volunteer named Alex Schmitt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>And Alex Schmitt lives in the county. Works in software. Says he likes to tinker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>There is one of these that the tabs may have broken off. And it looks like there may be jams. Oh. So.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So, Nancy basically described the problem. When she plugs it in, the motor of the blender just starts whirring immediately, and she can’t get it to turn off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>When you’ve got it plugged in, it’s supposed to not immediately start, but start when you put the top on and screw it and you’re ready to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Alex says, okay, well, let’s let’s take a look. And within a few minutes, really, he diagnoses the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>So now the question is, will it spin the way that you’re having the issue with. Yeah it will. Okay. You mentioned it leaks. Yes. So whatever whatever leaked in there has sort of gummed up these plastic elements that depress the switch on the bottom to the point that they got stuck on the lower end. And so it was always on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So the all of the gunk, all of the smoothie and coffee and all the things that Nancy Harris has blended over the past few years has sort of seeped down into this switch that activates the motor. So it was actually diagnosed really quickly and simply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alex Schmitt: \u003c/b>And that would do it for you. But the big thing is cleaning, and I’m guessing we have some Q-tips and some alcohol that we can work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Okay. Did she get it fixed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. So it took her and Alex Schmitt about an hour to fix the blender, and it did end up getting fixed. Basically, it just needed to be cleaned. They really just went in there with cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol and sort of freed up all the sticky stuff that was making the motor stuck in the on position. They even found like a small family of bugs living in the motor. So there’s all these little discoveries that they make along the way. And.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, what happened when Nancy and Alex got the magic bullet working again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>As Nancy Harris walked out with her fixed to working magic bullet blender, volunteers took the magic bullet blender, held it aloft and yelled, you know, magic bullet blender fixed. Nancy Harris, she said she was overjoyed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>We fixed something that had been broken and driving me crazy for at least a year and a half. It just saved me a lot of time and energy, and I learned how to fix it myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You know, you could really see this, like, sort of contagious look of excitement and happiness. And that’s kind of shared by the whole room when you know something gets fixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Harris: \u003c/b>It’s not saves you, what, 100, $200 every couple of years when this happens again, I’m really, really, really happy about it. And I feel very empowered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Coming up, how exactly have manufacturers made it harder for us to fix our own stuff? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>It does for some reason, also feel like a thing of the past. Like this idea that we as consumers can fix things ourselves. Like, I mean, I’m just thinking also about my partner’s laptop, which he’s been trying to get fixed for like the past two weeks. And at this point he’s like, God, I should just buy a new laptop at this point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. I mean, what you’re talking about is what’s called a repair monopoly. Basically, a manufacturer will, you know, not make their parts or tools or information necessary to repair their item accessible to consumers, basically forcing people to have to go to them to, get their thing repaired. Some companies will use, like, proprietary screw heads to put their devices together, or they’re not designed to be serviced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s even something called parts pairing with electronics, where parts are paired to the serial number of your, say, computer. And if you put in a different part, it will throw an error code when you know you try to turn it back on. There’s also this idea of planned obsolescence, right, where, you know, companies are basically making things to break because it’s more profitable for them to sell you something new as opposed to have you repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So, you know, manufacturers make it harder to repair their things, which means that your local shop can’t repair them. So then there’s, you know, these shops go out of business, and pretty soon the only place you can get the thing repaired is the company that made it. They can charge whatever they want, they can take as long as they want, or they can tell you it’s not able to be repaired, even if maybe it is, and force you to buy a new one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Well, how then is all have people actually tried to combat this disposable culture, this culture of buying new? On a larger scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Over the past decade, really? And earlier than that as well, we’ve started to see this rise of what’s called the right to repair movement. And basically, in a nutshell, right to repair says if you bought an item, you have the right to repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>And tell me what that has looked like in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>So we’re seeing a lot of people interested at the community level in repairing their own things, but it’s actually translated into a movement in state governments to put this kind of legislation on the books. So here in California last year, there was a law passed, and it’s basically a right to repair law goes into effect July 1st this year. And so it changed how manufacturers have to make repair accessible basically to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Right now, consumers in California are protected by this thing called the song Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. And basically that says that if a manufacturer makes an implied or expressed warranty on a product, then they need to make the parts, tools, and information necessary to repair that item available for a certain amount of years after the last model is produced, depending on how much that item costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>This new California law is really moving that forward. So this California law applies to appliances and electronics, and it basically says that if an item cost between $50 and 9999, then the manufacturer has to make the parts, tools and information necessary to repair that item available for three years after the last production date of the model. If that item is more than 9999, then the manufacturer needs to make the parts, tools, and information available for seven years after the last production date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>There’s a lot of hope in the right to repair movement that with a state like California passing a right to repair law, that it’s really going to build momentum in the in the nationwide right to repair movement. And we’re starting to see that this year. So far, 24 states are considering right to repair legislation. And that’s just at the last count.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>So it sounds like this law is really about giving people the tools to fix things themselves. Was there any pushback on this law?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah. I mean, writer repair gets a lot of pushback, and it’s mostly from, you know, big electronics companies like Apple. And then you have ag equipment companies like John Deere have historically pushed back against right to repair legislation. Apple lobbied heavily against this law and then came on in support of it at the last second, when they saw that it had basically, a guaranteed chance of passing or that it was going to pass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Coming back to the Fixit clinic that you went to in Redwood City. I imagine we’re going to see more of these kinds of clinics. In other cities, it seems like there’s already a lot of interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s definitely possible. The San Mateo County Office of Sustainability is partnering with the library system there to bring a different fix it clinic every month to different libraries in the county. Fix it clinic also has a presence on on the social platform discord. Have hundreds of members on that platform. And the founder of Fix It clinic, Peter Mui:, actually told me that they have people in Africa or Europe and spread out all throughout the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>So we basically, during the pandemic, launched a Global Fixers server on discord that allowed us to extend repair to anybody on the planet who has an internet connection and can get on discord.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I spoke with a representative from the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, and she said that basically their demand is far exceeding capacity. There’s a ton of interest in these kinds of events throughout San Mateo County. And as we’re seeing sort of throughout the nation in the world at this point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Why do you think that is?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I think as humans, really, we have this natural inclination to want to fix things. Peter Mui: would say that we are repairers at heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Peter Mui: \u003c/b>Because when that thing starts working again and they are the ones who fixed it, you know, it’s like Easter, you know, it’s really it’s a really wonderful feeling that we don’t want to deprive anybody of. You want to empower these people to be able to repair stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>I mean, personally, you know, I, I used to have an old pickup truck, and I actually replaced the clutch on my pickup truck one time, and I went to my mechanic friend and told him about the experience. And he said, you know, that’s a feeling you can’t buy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>Azul, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You’re very welcome. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b> That was Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, a reporter for KQED, and Ericka Cruz Guevarra, host of the podcast, The Bay. If you like what you heard, check out more episodes on The Bay’s podcast feed. They are an awesome news-focused companion to your Bay Curious listening, a bit like The Daily, but for local news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this episode got you thinking you’d like to learn more about how to repair your own stuff, we’ve got an event for you. Next Thursday, March 14th, \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">KQED is hosting a sustainable fashion event\u003c/a>. Experts will be on hand who will teach you how to mend your clothes and style them in new and exciting ways. We’ll put a link in our show notes or you can look for it at \u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/live\">kqed.org/live\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That episode was produced by Maria Esquinca, Alan Montecillo and Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Engineering support from Brendan Willard and Christopher Beale. The rest of the Bay Curious team includes Katrina Schwartz and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay hills above Berkeley and Oakland are crisscrossed with beautiful hiking trails, and hidden along them are clues to the Bay Area’s past. In the trees near Leona Heights, there’s a clearing scattered with concrete walls. One of them is as big as a bus; others are small, like traffic barriers. All of them are painted with really good murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Darrell Lavin came across them while hiking with his cousin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousbug]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It looks like it was some sort of a very significant structure many, many years ago,” he said. “And I can’t help but wonder, what’s the history of this? What was there, and what was it used for? It made me very curious.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out that the answer to Lavin’s question has a lot to do with… rocks. So, we asked a geologist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Alden is a sprightly guy with a ponytail and gemstone earrings. He said in the late 1800s, when Bay Area cities were growing, people punctured the East Bay hills with quarries and mines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Crushed stone is a basic requirement of civilization,” he said. “You just need it for everything. You need it for railroad beds, you need it for building foundations, you need it to build harbors and wharves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concrete walls still visible today \u003ca href=\"https://ia801601.us.archive.org/9/items/38calicturalindu00auburich/38calicturalindu00auburich.pdf\">were part of the workings of the Leona Heights Quarry\u003c/a>, he said, which was where Merritt College is today. Workers blasted rock from deep pits in the hills and loaded it onto a conveyor tram, which carried it down the hill to a train, where it was loaded onto freight cars and shipped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11977321\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11977321\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of a wooden trestle conveyor tram snaking its way up a wooded hill.\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1807\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-800x730.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1020x931.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-160x146.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1536x1402.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1920x1752.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This photograph from 1912 shows a tram that brought stone from the quarry down to the train tracks.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The tram was a half-mile-long conveyor belt running on a wooden trestle. Historical records suggest its machinery was housed in the concrete ruins Lavin asked about. Slots in the walls probably framed the wheels that turned the belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A fateful fire\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The tram helped make the whole rock quarry operation possible but would ultimately destroy it. In 1913, a fire broke out near its base and ignited the conveyor belt, which carried the flames up the hill. \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/999259004/\">An article in the Oakland Enquirer from Aug. 8th\u003c/a>, 1913, said the wooden trestle was “dry as tinder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stores of dynamite and powder in sheds in the path of the fire spread the blaze with great rapidity,” the article said. “Until long after midnight, the fire burned in the ravines of Leona Heights, to which blazing brands had been carried by the high wind. That no fatalities occurred was considered remarkable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All the buildings and tools used in the quarry operation were incinerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, all that remains of the Leona Heights Quarry are the ruins of the conveyor tram that Darrell stumbled upon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The artists have adopted it,” Alden said. “And it belongs to the future as well as the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3388391131&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>An unexpected art gallery\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The concrete walls have been painted over many times by many artists. One of them is Pancho Pescador. He said he found this place by accident back in 1995 — not long after he moved to the United States — and was captivated by the murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11977322\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11977322\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead.jpg\" alt=\"A man in black hoodie stands center, around him are remnants of concrete walls painted with vibrant art.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist Pancho Pescador stands between two of his pieces painted on the concrete ruins of the old Leona Heights Quarry. \u003ccite>(Katherine Monahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Graffiti art was still pretty new to Pescador at the time. He’d seen very little of it growing up in Chile \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/place/Chile/The-military-dictatorship-from-1973\">under the repressive dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you [got] caught painting in the street,” he said, “you may get disappeared or dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many street artists of the day, only urgent political messages were worth that risk, Pescador said. His work reflects the intensity of those early experiences. He pointed out one of his murals: a figure with the head of a bird carrying a paint roller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s the weapon,” Pescador said. “He’s a warrior because he’s carrying his weapon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest concrete wall in the clearing is about the size of a semitruck. On it, artists have painted a woman, an AC Transit bus and the word “Ghost” in vibrant colors. It’s a memorial to a local artist who passed away at a young age, Pescador explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not going anywhere,” he said. “I doubt anybody’s going to paint over this. I’m not gonna do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For him, these concrete ruins are a special place, different from any other graffiti site. He loves painting up in the trees, with time to do big, intricate pieces with lots of colors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like decay,” he said. “And I like seeing my pieces getting old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The East Bay hills above Berkeley and Oakland are crisscrossed with beautiful hiking trails. Darrell Lavin, today’s question-asker, loves to explore them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> My cousin lives right over in that area right near Leona Lodge. And so I go over there and hike with her all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>One day, they tried a trail he’d never been on before. Halfway up they came upon something unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> It looks like it was some sort of a very significant structure many, many years ago. And it looks like there had to be some sort of a cabling system there to haul stuff up and down the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Darrell figured his cousin would know what these ruins were, but she had no idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> And they’re all covered in graffiti. And the artwork is beautiful. And I can’t help but wonder, what’s the history of this, what was there and what was it used for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Darrell’s question won a Bay Curious voting round, so today we’re hiking up to these ruins near Leona Canyon Regional Park… to learn what was there more than a hundred years ago. And we’ll find out a bit more about that beautiful artwork that Darrell described. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>KQED Reporter Katherine Monahan loves hiking and mysteries, so she was the perfect person to send on an expedition to find out the history of these ruins in the Oakland hills and how they’re being used now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Footsteps in the woods\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> I’ve been hiking around for half an hour, looking for these ruins, when I see a flash of bright pink peeking through the oak trees that line the trail. I duck under a branch . . . and enter a clearing scattered with concrete walls. One of them is as big as a bus; others are small, like traffic barriers. All of them are painted with \u003ci>really good\u003c/i> murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>And they built it well because the concrete is still in great shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Andrew Alden, a geologist and local historian, meets me here. He’s a sprightly guy with a ponytail and gemstone earrings. He points out a clue to why these ruins are here. It’s a reddish rock, about the size of a mailbox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>I think it’s just beautiful by itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> What is it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>It started out as volcanic ash on the seafloor. It got involved in a lot of tectonic action, and it changed the rock into this very hard light-colored, very strong material that gets this honey-colored orange and red coating on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Geologists used to call it the Leona laterite. Now we just call it Leona Volcanic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Alden says that in the late 1800s, when Bay Area cities were growing, rock like this was very much in demand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Crushed stone is a basic requirement of civilization. You just need it for everything. You need it for railroad beds, you need it for building foundations, you need it to build harbors and wharves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> People punctured the East Bay hills with mines and quarries, looking for pyrite, sulfur, gold, though they didn’t really find any, and just rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>They started quarries wherever the rock was good just to make money from these hills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The ruins we’re looking at were part of the workings of the Leona Heights Quarry, says Alden, which was where Merritt College is today. Workers dynamited rock from pits and loaded it onto a conveyor tram leading down the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>It would send stone down to the electric train tracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> It was a half-mile-long conveyor belt running on a wooden trestle. It looked kind of like an old-fashioned roller coaster. Historical records suggest its machinery was housed right here in this concrete. Slots in the walls probably framed the wheels that turned the belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> This tram helped make the whole operation possible but would ultimately destroy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Reading Newspaper Report: \u003c/b>Oakland Enquirer, Aug. 8th, 1913 — Leona Fire Causes Big Loss, Town Is Menaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> A fire broke out near the base of the tram and ignited the conveyor belt, which carried the flames up the hill. The newspaper said the wooden trestle was “dry as tinder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Reading Newspaper Report: \u003c/b>Stores of dynamite and powder in sheds in the path of the fire spread the blaze with great rapidity. Until long after midnight the fires burned in the ravines of Leona Heights, to which blazing brands had been carried by the high wind. That no fatalities occurred was considered remarkable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> All the buildings and tools were incinerated, a quarter million dollar loss and a huge blow to the quarry. By the 1930s, it showed up in the papers mainly as a place where convicts hid out or kids got lost. Here’s Andrew Alden again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Cheaper stone arose out of town, you know, quarries and cities can’t really coexist. Oakland has spread out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Eventually, the quarry was filled in and is now a Merritt College parking lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>There used to be a great big pit there they called Devil’s Punchbowl and all the local kids would get in trouble there. They’d push old cars into it and throw dynamite sticks and that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> And what’s left of the conveyor tram …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>As you see, the artists have adopted it. And it belongs to the future as well as the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Modern music transition\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The concrete walls here have been painted over many times by many artists. One of them has been coming here for almost thirty years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>My name is Pancho Pescador. I’m originally from Chile. I always painted since I was a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says he found this place by accident back in 1995, not long after he moved to the United States. He was out hiking by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>And I remember coming here and seeing the wall. Unexpected, because you’re in the middle of the forest and then you find all these ruins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> They had murals on them even then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>I was like, “What? Who paint this? This is so cool. Oh, he did it with spray paint?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Graffiti art was still pretty new to Pescador at the time. He’d seen very little of it growing up in Chile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>Because we have a dictatorship, so it was more repression. You know, if you get caught painting in the street, you may get disappeared or, or dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> That was during the regime of Augusto Pinochet, who came to power in 1973 following a U.S.-backed coup. Through the 70s and 80s, thousands of Chileans disappeared or were killed under his rule, and almost 40,000 were held as political prisoners. Pescador says street artists of the day restricted themselves to political messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>They didn’t write their name, you know, like, “Oh, Pancho was here” or, you know, like, they’re risking their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He shows me one of his pieces, a larger-than-life self-portrait, on a decaying chunk of concrete wall. It’s a figure with the head of a bird carrying a paint roller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>That’s the weapon. You know, like, the weapon doesn’t have to be an M16. It could be a paint roller, so he’s a warrior because he’s carrying his weapon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The painting has been here for about two years, which Pescador says is a long life for a piece up here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>You paint here, you know that you’re gonna get covered. That’s part of the game. It’s no crying, like, “Oh, you paint over me?” No, this is not the place, you know, you paint here, you know what’s going to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> But there are exceptions. On the biggest wall — which is about the size of a semitruck — is a long, vibrant painting of a woman, and an AC Transit bus, and the word “Ghost.” Pescador explains it’s a memorial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>A tribute to Ghost which was a writer from Oakland that unfortunately passed at a very young age, and some of her friends and homies did this piece to honor her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says this piece will last because artists won’t normally cover up a memorial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>This is not going anywhere. I doubt anybody’s going to paint over this. I’m not gonna do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says this is a special place, different from your average graffiti site. Up here in the trees, you have time to do big, intricate pieces with lots of colors. It’s not like painting downtown, where you might get caught. And the hike screens out a lot of artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>You gotta be in shape. Because you’re gonna carry your backpack full of paint, probably a couple gallons of paint, roller, all the tools, water, it gets heavy. So you know, like, you need a certain special energy to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Pescador says he loves painting up in these abandoned ruins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>I like decay. And I like seeing my pieces getting old. I find beauty on that, a place that could be dark. And you know when you paint it, you change the energy. You do all the work for that, you know, like you see the place change, and it’s like, “Oh, yeah!” and then people appreciate it, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Through over a century of massive change around it, this place has adapted from rock quarry to outdoor art gallery. Who knows what it may become next or what it will see in the next century?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was KQED’s Katherine Monahan. Thanks to Darrell Lavin for asking the question we answered today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>This Saturday, March 2 is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/event/3954\">Night of Ideas at San Francisco Public Library’s Main Branch\u003c/a>. If you haven’t been … know this: it’s a mashup of artists, leading thinkers and cultural organizations all thinking about the future — and how city life can be more just, culturally vibrant, and sustainable. Bay Curious will be there this year, hanging out in the bookmobile. Stop by to share your personal transit tales with us and the podcast Muni Diaries. We’re teaming up to collect your stories and I can’t wait to hear what you might have for us. Find details and register for free at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/events\">KQED.org/Live\u003c/a>. I’ll see you there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you enjoy Bay Curious, tell another podcast-loving friend all about us, please! Word of mouth is one of the best ways for us to grow the show. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Alex Gonzalez, Dan Brekke, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The East Bay hills above Berkeley and Oakland are crisscrossed with beautiful hiking trails, and hidden along them are clues to the Bay Area’s past. In the trees near Leona Heights, there’s a clearing scattered with concrete walls. One of them is as big as a bus; others are small, like traffic barriers. All of them are painted with really good murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Curious listener Darrell Lavin came across them while hiking with his cousin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n What do you wonder about the Bay Area, its culture or people that you want KQED to investigate?\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Ask Bay Curious.\u003c/a>\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It looks like it was some sort of a very significant structure many, many years ago,” he said. “And I can’t help but wonder, what’s the history of this? What was there, and what was it used for? It made me very curious.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out that the answer to Lavin’s question has a lot to do with… rocks. So, we asked a geologist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andrew Alden is a sprightly guy with a ponytail and gemstone earrings. He said in the late 1800s, when Bay Area cities were growing, people punctured the East Bay hills with quarries and mines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Crushed stone is a basic requirement of civilization,” he said. “You just need it for everything. You need it for railroad beds, you need it for building foundations, you need it to build harbors and wharves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concrete walls still visible today \u003ca href=\"https://ia801601.us.archive.org/9/items/38calicturalindu00auburich/38calicturalindu00auburich.pdf\">were part of the workings of the Leona Heights Quarry\u003c/a>, he said, which was where Merritt College is today. Workers blasted rock from deep pits in the hills and loaded it onto a conveyor tram, which carried it down the hill to a train, where it was loaded onto freight cars and shipped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11977321\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11977321\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram.jpg\" alt=\"Black and white photo of a wooden trestle conveyor tram snaking its way up a wooded hill.\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1807\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-800x730.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1020x931.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-160x146.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1536x1402.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Conveyor-tram-1920x1752.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This photograph from 1912 shows a tram that brought stone from the quarry down to the train tracks.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The tram was a half-mile-long conveyor belt running on a wooden trestle. Historical records suggest its machinery was housed in the concrete ruins Lavin asked about. Slots in the walls probably framed the wheels that turned the belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A fateful fire\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The tram helped make the whole rock quarry operation possible but would ultimately destroy it. In 1913, a fire broke out near its base and ignited the conveyor belt, which carried the flames up the hill. \u003ca href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/image/999259004/\">An article in the Oakland Enquirer from Aug. 8th\u003c/a>, 1913, said the wooden trestle was “dry as tinder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stores of dynamite and powder in sheds in the path of the fire spread the blaze with great rapidity,” the article said. “Until long after midnight, the fire burned in the ravines of Leona Heights, to which blazing brands had been carried by the high wind. That no fatalities occurred was considered remarkable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All the buildings and tools used in the quarry operation were incinerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, all that remains of the Leona Heights Quarry are the ruins of the conveyor tram that Darrell stumbled upon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The artists have adopted it,” Alden said. “And it belongs to the future as well as the past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3388391131&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>An unexpected art gallery\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The concrete walls have been painted over many times by many artists. One of them is Pancho Pescador. He said he found this place by accident back in 1995 — not long after he moved to the United States — and was captivated by the murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11977322\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11977322\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead.jpg\" alt=\"A man in black hoodie stands center, around him are remnants of concrete walls painted with vibrant art.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/Oakland-Leona-Heights-ruins-lead-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist Pancho Pescador stands between two of his pieces painted on the concrete ruins of the old Leona Heights Quarry. \u003ccite>(Katherine Monahan/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Graffiti art was still pretty new to Pescador at the time. He’d seen very little of it growing up in Chile \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/place/Chile/The-military-dictatorship-from-1973\">under the repressive dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you [got] caught painting in the street,” he said, “you may get disappeared or dead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many street artists of the day, only urgent political messages were worth that risk, Pescador said. His work reflects the intensity of those early experiences. He pointed out one of his murals: a figure with the head of a bird carrying a paint roller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s the weapon,” Pescador said. “He’s a warrior because he’s carrying his weapon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest concrete wall in the clearing is about the size of a semitruck. On it, artists have painted a woman, an AC Transit bus and the word “Ghost” in vibrant colors. It’s a memorial to a local artist who passed away at a young age, Pescador explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is not going anywhere,” he said. “I doubt anybody’s going to paint over this. I’m not gonna do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For him, these concrete ruins are a special place, different from any other graffiti site. He loves painting up in the trees, with time to do big, intricate pieces with lots of colors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like decay,” he said. “And I like seeing my pieces getting old.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The East Bay hills above Berkeley and Oakland are crisscrossed with beautiful hiking trails. Darrell Lavin, today’s question-asker, loves to explore them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> My cousin lives right over in that area right near Leona Lodge. And so I go over there and hike with her all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>One day, they tried a trail he’d never been on before. Halfway up they came upon something unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> It looks like it was some sort of a very significant structure many, many years ago. And it looks like there had to be some sort of a cabling system there to haul stuff up and down the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Darrell figured his cousin would know what these ruins were, but she had no idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Darrell Lavin:\u003c/b> And they’re all covered in graffiti. And the artwork is beautiful. And I can’t help but wonder, what’s the history of this, what was there and what was it used for?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Darrell’s question won a Bay Curious voting round, so today we’re hiking up to these ruins near Leona Canyon Regional Park… to learn what was there more than a hundred years ago. And we’ll find out a bit more about that beautiful artwork that Darrell described. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>KQED Reporter Katherine Monahan loves hiking and mysteries, so she was the perfect person to send on an expedition to find out the history of these ruins in the Oakland hills and how they’re being used now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Footsteps in the woods\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> I’ve been hiking around for half an hour, looking for these ruins, when I see a flash of bright pink peeking through the oak trees that line the trail. I duck under a branch . . . and enter a clearing scattered with concrete walls. One of them is as big as a bus; others are small, like traffic barriers. All of them are painted with \u003ci>really good\u003c/i> murals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>And they built it well because the concrete is still in great shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Andrew Alden, a geologist and local historian, meets me here. He’s a sprightly guy with a ponytail and gemstone earrings. He points out a clue to why these ruins are here. It’s a reddish rock, about the size of a mailbox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>I think it’s just beautiful by itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> What is it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>It started out as volcanic ash on the seafloor. It got involved in a lot of tectonic action, and it changed the rock into this very hard light-colored, very strong material that gets this honey-colored orange and red coating on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Geologists used to call it the Leona laterite. Now we just call it Leona Volcanic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Alden says that in the late 1800s, when Bay Area cities were growing, rock like this was very much in demand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Crushed stone is a basic requirement of civilization. You just need it for everything. You need it for railroad beds, you need it for building foundations, you need it to build harbors and wharves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> People punctured the East Bay hills with mines and quarries, looking for pyrite, sulfur, gold, though they didn’t really find any, and just rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>They started quarries wherever the rock was good just to make money from these hills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The ruins we’re looking at were part of the workings of the Leona Heights Quarry, says Alden, which was where Merritt College is today. Workers dynamited rock from pits and loaded it onto a conveyor tram leading down the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>It would send stone down to the electric train tracks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> It was a half-mile-long conveyor belt running on a wooden trestle. It looked kind of like an old-fashioned roller coaster. Historical records suggest its machinery was housed right here in this concrete. Slots in the walls probably framed the wheels that turned the belt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> This tram helped make the whole operation possible but would ultimately destroy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Reading Newspaper Report: \u003c/b>Oakland Enquirer, Aug. 8th, 1913 — Leona Fire Causes Big Loss, Town Is Menaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> A fire broke out near the base of the tram and ignited the conveyor belt, which carried the flames up the hill. The newspaper said the wooden trestle was “dry as tinder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Voice Reading Newspaper Report: \u003c/b>Stores of dynamite and powder in sheds in the path of the fire spread the blaze with great rapidity. Until long after midnight the fires burned in the ravines of Leona Heights, to which blazing brands had been carried by the high wind. That no fatalities occurred was considered remarkable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> All the buildings and tools were incinerated, a quarter million dollar loss and a huge blow to the quarry. By the 1930s, it showed up in the papers mainly as a place where convicts hid out or kids got lost. Here’s Andrew Alden again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>Cheaper stone arose out of town, you know, quarries and cities can’t really coexist. Oakland has spread out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Eventually, the quarry was filled in and is now a Merritt College parking lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>There used to be a great big pit there they called Devil’s Punchbowl and all the local kids would get in trouble there. They’d push old cars into it and throw dynamite sticks and that kind of thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> And what’s left of the conveyor tram …\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Alden: \u003c/b>As you see, the artists have adopted it. And it belongs to the future as well as the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Modern music transition\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The concrete walls here have been painted over many times by many artists. One of them has been coming here for almost thirty years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>My name is Pancho Pescador. I’m originally from Chile. I always painted since I was a kid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says he found this place by accident back in 1995, not long after he moved to the United States. He was out hiking by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>And I remember coming here and seeing the wall. Unexpected, because you’re in the middle of the forest and then you find all these ruins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> They had murals on them even then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>I was like, “What? Who paint this? This is so cool. Oh, he did it with spray paint?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Graffiti art was still pretty new to Pescador at the time. He’d seen very little of it growing up in Chile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>Because we have a dictatorship, so it was more repression. You know, if you get caught painting in the street, you may get disappeared or, or dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> That was during the regime of Augusto Pinochet, who came to power in 1973 following a U.S.-backed coup. Through the 70s and 80s, thousands of Chileans disappeared or were killed under his rule, and almost 40,000 were held as political prisoners. Pescador says street artists of the day restricted themselves to political messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>They didn’t write their name, you know, like, “Oh, Pancho was here” or, you know, like, they’re risking their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He shows me one of his pieces, a larger-than-life self-portrait, on a decaying chunk of concrete wall. It’s a figure with the head of a bird carrying a paint roller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>That’s the weapon. You know, like, the weapon doesn’t have to be an M16. It could be a paint roller, so he’s a warrior because he’s carrying his weapon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> The painting has been here for about two years, which Pescador says is a long life for a piece up here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>You paint here, you know that you’re gonna get covered. That’s part of the game. It’s no crying, like, “Oh, you paint over me?” No, this is not the place, you know, you paint here, you know what’s going to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> But there are exceptions. On the biggest wall — which is about the size of a semitruck — is a long, vibrant painting of a woman, and an AC Transit bus, and the word “Ghost.” Pescador explains it’s a memorial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>A tribute to Ghost which was a writer from Oakland that unfortunately passed at a very young age, and some of her friends and homies did this piece to honor her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says this piece will last because artists won’t normally cover up a memorial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>This is not going anywhere. I doubt anybody’s going to paint over this. I’m not gonna do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> He says this is a special place, different from your average graffiti site. Up here in the trees, you have time to do big, intricate pieces with lots of colors. It’s not like painting downtown, where you might get caught. And the hike screens out a lot of artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>You gotta be in shape. Because you’re gonna carry your backpack full of paint, probably a couple gallons of paint, roller, all the tools, water, it gets heavy. So you know, like, you need a certain special energy to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Pescador says he loves painting up in these abandoned ruins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pancho Pescador: \u003c/b>I like decay. And I like seeing my pieces getting old. I find beauty on that, a place that could be dark. And you know when you paint it, you change the energy. You do all the work for that, you know, like you see the place change, and it’s like, “Oh, yeah!” and then people appreciate it, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katherine Monahan:\u003c/b> Through over a century of massive change around it, this place has adapted from rock quarry to outdoor art gallery. Who knows what it may become next or what it will see in the next century?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was KQED’s Katherine Monahan. Thanks to Darrell Lavin for asking the question we answered today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>This Saturday, March 2 is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/event/3954\">Night of Ideas at San Francisco Public Library’s Main Branch\u003c/a>. If you haven’t been … know this: it’s a mashup of artists, leading thinkers and cultural organizations all thinking about the future — and how city life can be more just, culturally vibrant, and sustainable. Bay Curious will be there this year, hanging out in the bookmobile. Stop by to share your personal transit tales with us and the podcast Muni Diaries. We’re teaming up to collect your stories and I can’t wait to hear what you might have for us. Find details and register for free at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/events\">KQED.org/Live\u003c/a>. I’ll see you there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>If you enjoy Bay Curious, tell another podcast-loving friend all about us, please! Word of mouth is one of the best ways for us to grow the show. Thank you!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, Olivia-Allen Price. Additional support from Alex Gonzalez, Dan Brekke, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Is the SMART Train Easing Highway 101 Traffic in Marin and Sonoma?",
"headTitle": "Is the SMART Train Easing Highway 101 Traffic in Marin and Sonoma? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving to work every morning on congested roads is no one’s idea of a good time. And the commute on Highway 101 through Sonoma and Marin counties can be an especially laborious journey during mid-week rush hour. In an attempt to relieve congestion, provide greener transportation options and offer more ways for people to travel, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) train opened its first stations in 2017. Since then, it has been building out its system, starting at the southern terminus of Larkspur. Eventually, it will reach all the way to Cloverdale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the train has been in operation for several years now, this train service is still under the radar for a lot of Bay Area residents. Still, on a recent Thursday morning, the Marin and Sonoma residents who rode the train were enthusiastic about the service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I take it every single day that I can because it’s just so much quicker,” said Kelly Smith, who lives in Novato and works in San Rafael. “It’s economical. I get to chat with people on the train. It’s much more relaxing. It’s my favorite way to travel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other riders agreed that riding the train is much more pleasant than slogging through traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This train corridor, you feel like you’re in Europe,” Scott Warner said. “My health is better, and my mind is better when I get to the office, not having to deal with the jam on the 101.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976622\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157.jpg\" alt=\"The photo is taken inside the train looking out. Inside are seats in siloutte. Outside is a lush marshland with green grass poking out of a shallow body of water. In the distance a yellow hillside with dry grass rises above the marsh.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1226\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-800x511.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-1020x651.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-1536x981.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The views over the marshlands aboard the SMART train as it travels from the Petaluma train station en route to the San Rafael station. \u003ccite>(Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But do these happy riders mean the SMART train is relieving congestion on Highway 101? That’s what Bay Curious listener Brian Auger, who lives in Fairfax, really wants to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a good question, but also a tricky time to answer because in 2024, just a few years after the coronavirus pandemic, traffic and commute patterns have changed a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part three of the Bay Curious transportation episode. Listen to the entire episode below.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3450871318&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The short answer\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A Caltrans spokesperson said there is 40% less traffic on US-101 between Larkspur, in Marin, and Sonoma Airport Blvd — an approximate location for where the SMART train line currently ends — than there was in 2019. But those numbers reflect driving at all times of the day and all days of the week, so they are likely more a product of hybrid work environments than anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calendar year 2023, SMART carried over 750,000 riders,” SMART General Manager Eddy Cumins said. “The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So, if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a lot, but to give that number more context, Caltrans said the total annual vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd is more than 1.8 billion. In comparison, the miles traveled on SMART represent only the tiniest fraction of all that travel. And for even further context, SMART’s yearly ridership is close to the number of passengers BART carried each week in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, right now, SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic on US-101.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The longer answer\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The SMART train has only been around for a few years, most of them during or directly after the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended ridership and decimated budgets for transit agencies around the region. SMART is actually the only local transit agency to see an increase in ridership during 2023 as compared to 2019 (the last full year before the pandemic).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth considering that the system isn’t fully built yet. Transit systems tend to become more useful the longer they’re around. A system like BART has been operating since the 1970s, and other infrastructure has been built around it. Employers have offices near BART stations, other transit agencies provide links to BART, and easy train access can even drive home prices. SMART hasn’t been around long enough to see much of this effect yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a small system,” Cumins acknowledged. “We’re not BART. We’re not Caltrain. We have to focus on meeting the needs of the communities we serve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do that, Cumins and his colleagues have been holding listening sessions with community members in Marin and Sonoma to learn how SMART can better serve riders. Right now, the most popular station is Downtown Petaluma and many riders get off in San Rafael or Larkspur. And people who travel on the train with their bikes have been consistent riders, even during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings,” Cumins said. “We had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve also increased service in the middle of the day, held fare prices low and created a new type of monthly commuter pass that reflects the reality of hybrid work schedules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And immediately, we saw a 28% increase in monthly passes,” Cumins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there were more specific needs, like local teachers expressing the need for transportation when taking school kids on field trips. Cumins said they looked at train capacity and saw they might be able to accommodate this request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off-peak hours, when these kids want to travel, we have capacity there,” he said. “And so between nine and two, they can ride. So we’re now offering free field trips, too, for K-12 students. There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the SMART train. And so that’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976625\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214.jpeg\" alt=\"A green SMART train car sits at a station platform. The train is on the right side, and the platform is on the left. The platform has a few passengers on it in the distance.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The SMART train began operations in 2017 and continues to expand. \u003ccite>(Paul Lancour/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Interestingly, the ridership of SMART doesn’t follow normal commute pattern expectations. While 60% of rides are in the southern direction in the morning — what you might expect — a full 40% are northbound. Students might explain some of those anomalies. Cumins said about 15% of riders on SMART trains are students heading to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s nice, there’s no problems,” said high school student Louie. “When we come home, it doesn’t feel that crowded. It’s mostly in the morning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SMART is currently building the Windsor station and has several bike lanes under construction or in the planning phase as well. Part of the agency’s mission is to build out the bike path infrastructure in the region at the same time as it builds the rails, so when the system is complete, it should be a bonanza of rails and trails for residents and visitors alike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing [riders] always say is, ‘I cannot believe how clean the train is,’” Cumins said. “The other thing that I hear from people who ride is that the area between Petaluma and Novato may be the most beautiful place on Earth, and it’s a place that you can’t get to unless you’re on the train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every weekday morning, millions of us Bay Area residents get out of our cozy beds … and embark on mystifying migration unlike any other on planet Earth. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music reminiscent of a nature documentary begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right heading out the door. It is 7:00 on the nose. The sun will not rise for another 20 minutes or so.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Paul Lancour, one of my colleagues at KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leaving my home in Novato. I’m going to make the short drive to the downtown Novato SMART train. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s setting off on a daily ritual so many of us humans make. Not for food or water exactly, like you might expect from the rest of the animal kingdom, but … for work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music shift to hurried 1950s-era productivity music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking about our daily commute, of course. Today, we’ve asked Paul to trade in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">his \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">daily commute by car into KQED’s offices in San Francisco for a public transit bonanza. Along the way, he’ll be riding the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">somewhat\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-new SMART train through Marin County. SMART stands for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, by the way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why are we sending him on this mission? To answer this question from a listener…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian Auger: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Brian Auger. My question is has the North Bay SMART train had any actual impact on relieving traffic on Highway 101?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll be checking in with Paul throughout the episode as he makes his way to the KQED offices to deliver the answer for Brian … but along the way, we’ll answer two other commuter questions. Listener Laurel Hetchinova thinks drivers have gotten a little out of control recently.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are drivers around here maybe more aggressive lately, or is it maybe just me?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her question won a recent Bay Curious public voting round. And then finally, is there an antidote to all this commuting misery floating on the Bay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, This is Lee from Berkeley. Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service?\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve got a full episode of good stuff just ahead on Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And oh, it looks like Paul has made it to the Novato Downtown SMART train station…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Train bell and ambi of the train station fades in\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): (\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beep!) That’s me tapping into the fare station here. Train departing at 7:33. \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Voice over speaker on train says:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next station, Larkspur. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s off! Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re tackling some of your transit questions today as Paul makes his journey from his Novato home to KQED’s offices in San Francisco. Looks like his ride on the SMART train is complete, and he’s onto the next leg of his journey an hour and a half after it began.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Larkspur ferry getting ready to depart at 8:29. What a lovely morning. Certainly beats sitting in traffic.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of ferry boat pulling away from dock\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll learn soon if the SMART train is making a dent in traffic on Highway 101. But one thing we know Paul won’t be contending with today is aggressive drivers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curious music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our listener, Laurel, feels like the roadways here have gotten spicier than they once were…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>It feels kind of like every time we go out, there are, I don’t know, maybe like half a dozen going 90 to 100 and just weaving in between everybody else.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I remember that it was kind of like that during the initial weeks of shelter-in-place when fewer cars were out on the road but it feels like it’s still happening even though traffic’s back to normal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To help us figure out what’s what, we’ve got Dan Brekke in the studio today. He’s the reporter and editor of In-transit KQED’s daily blog about how we get around. Welcome, Dan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, Olivia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First off, Dan, can you tell us why the pandemic was such a watershed moment on our streets and highways?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, our reality changed overnight from having very crowded roads to much less crowded roads. And so that invited a different kind of behavior. Especially a lot more speeding than we’d ever seen before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m with Laurel. It seems like a lot of dangerous behaviors that picked up during the pandemic and then just have never went away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it turns out there’s a little survey data out there that backs up our impressions. There’s a place at UC Berkeley called the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, or SafeTREC, and they participate in a yearly survey on what drivers feel they’re seeing on the road. And one of the questions that the survey asks is, “Since the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, what is the biggest change in behaviors you have noticed from drivers?” And statewide the most common answer was aggressive driving and road rage, with speeding coming in a close second. So for a lot of folks, at the very least, we’re perceiving that these things are getting worse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. But let’s look at reality. Does the California Highway Patrol have any kind of data to support or refute what so many of us are seeing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer I talked to at the Golden Gate division of the CHP, Andrew Barkley, said that anecdotally, and this is where the CHP comes down, it’s anecdotal evidence. people are seeing it more.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any true scientifically backed answer to say, this is exactly what’s happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think the most dramatic piece of evidence that is out there is from the first year of the pandemic. I think most of us would agree driving over 100 miles an hour is a pretty serious breach of driving etiquette and probably unsafe. When the pandemic happened, the number of citations doubled from 2019, the full year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year that shelter-at-home orders were in force. So, you know, that number has gone down since 2020, but it hasn’t gone back to where it was before the pandemic started. So that’s, you know, one indicator, objective indicator, of wilder behavior on the road. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So speed is up. But what about reckless driving? Is California Highway Patrol handing out more tickets for that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You hear us referring to reckless driving. Typically, we are referring to three specific violations, and it’s normally a combination of speed, following too close and unsafe lane change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting that the number of those citations is lower for the most part, than it was the last year before the pandemic. So what do we make of that? It isn’t necessarily that people are driving more carefully. It could be that there’s less enforcement. We really don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Driving, we are perceiving it’s getting worse, that’s definitely universal. There are a couple of indicators we are at least speeding a lot more than before the pandemic. But everything kind of looks flat, but we cannot put too much weight into any of this because the big question, of course, is enforcement, which is a moving variable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, there are some other things you can point to. Traffic deaths went up a lot in 2020 and 2021, and continued going up in 2022. They seem to have eased off, declined slightly in California last year, 2023. But the higher number of traffic fatalities, especially in 2020 and 2021, with lower amounts of traffic, points frankly, to speeding. The number of people killed in crashes where speeding was the primary crash factor, as the CHP puts it, was up 16% in California from 2020 to 2021. So, I mean, that’s objective evidence that there’s actual behavior happening that’s leading to some of these things that we’re seeing and that we perceive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Well, Dan Brekke, editor, reporter, traffic whiz for In Transit, KQED’s relatively new transit blog. Thank you for joining us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Synthy piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Let’s check in on Paul, who, last we heard, was on the ferry from Larkspur…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of downtown San Francisco street\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I’ve arrived. I’m in San Francisco. 10 minutes after 9. So 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving my house. I’m here! The problem is my office is over in the Mission/Potrero Area, miles away from where I am now. So, the journey continues I’m on my way to BART…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of BART train whirring into the station\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh boy, well at least he got to enjoy that scenic ferry ride. I think that ferry riders are probably the happiest bunch of commuters in the region. There’s even a bar on board! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the ferries aren’t the only boats offering transportation on the water.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last fall I noticed tiny yellow boats along the San Francisco shoreline a couple of times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time there’s just one of these bright yellow speed boats roaming along the Embarcadero. They’re easy to spot because they have a cute little black and white checkerboard trim, just like you’d see on a retro car taxi. We sent Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz out to learn more about this boutique transit option.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom shouting to passersby: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$10 Water Taxi Ride! Save yourself a long boring walk!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I meet Captain Tom of the San Francisco Water Taxi Company along the Embarcadero at Pier 15. The little yellow boat is pulled up at the Exploratorium…near a small sign that says “Water Taxi.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Best 10 bucks you’ll spend all day! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The water taxis come when you call…or you can make an appointment. There’s no set schedule.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Big step, watch your head\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>One step down, and I’m on the small boat with three bench seats and two captain’s chairs up front.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s a top to help protect passengers from sun and spray.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The water taxi operates out of Pier 39. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They make six different stops at popular places along the San Francisco bay front.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Starting from Hyde Street Pier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near Ghirardelli Square. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To Pier 39. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A popular tourist destination. As well as Pier 15 at the Exploratorium museum.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Pier 1.5, next to the Ferry Building, which is temporarily closed for repairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they go south of the Bay Bridge for a few extra bucks.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park and Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rides north of the bridge cost 10 dollars each … or you can pay fifteen to get a hop-on, hop-off fare to ride all day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick safety chat. Life vests are under the white seats…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the safety chat we set off north in the 29-foot yellow boat to pick up some passengers at Pier 39. I’m sitting in the co-pilot seat, which swivels, so I’ve got great views…and there are three bench seats behind me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambi of boat speeding up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I saw an ad on Craigslist. And I went from part-time to full-time, to managing the business in three months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom says the water taxi business took a hit during COVID, but it’s gradually picking back up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you’ve got Angel Island over there, which is an old immigration island. Alcatraz straight ahead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We slow down as we pull into the harbor at Pier 39, a massive liberty ship from WWII, the Jeremiah O’Brien, towering above us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honk horn\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The folks we’re picking up, Jill and her son Reed from Maryland, scheduled their ride. They’re waiting by the water taxi sign at Pier 39.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re visiting to get away from frigid East Coast temperatures. And today, San Francisco is showing off with a beautiful, warm, sunny day.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz to Reed and Jill (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what did you guys think, worth ten bucks?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Reed: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, definitely like the view.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic. I’m not complaining about the traffic, it’s a city. But you’re not familiar with the streets, so to see and drive is extra!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re headed to the Exploratorium for some science fun and then eating and shopping at the Ferry Building before they head back north in the water taxi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom to Jill and Reed (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ll plan on something around 3? So just call me when you get a better idea of your plans. I should be back in the area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since most of the water taxi stops are along the Embarcadero, I thought most of the passengers would be tourists, like Jill. But Captain Tom says it’s actually a 50-50 split with locals.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People will go for walks and they’ll walk out the Embarcadero and then and, especially with their dogs, and they’ll get to up Hyde Street Pier and they’ll just get tired and they don’t want to walk home, you know, another hour, especially if it’s late on a Sunday.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The taxi will also pick you up if you miss the last ferry off Angel Island or want to head over to Tiburon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you haven’t gotten out on San Francisco Bay, you’re missing one of the best things about San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom says there’s a lot of interest in water taxis for commuting, and they’re exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, but gas is expensive and their boats only seat six passengers. It’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we could definitely do it if we could just find a, you know, the right, cost-effective way to do it. And I think electric boats will advance that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says they’re exploring some options. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’ll be a really exciting time period for water travel in the next couple of years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom lets me off at Pier 52 near the Chase Center and sets off to pick up his next fare. But not before reminding me about Mutt Mondays…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Mondays, if you bring your dog, you ride for free.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Horn toot + water lapping sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bass guitar music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz. Paul’s journey to the KQED offices continues as he rides up the BART escalator.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">9:33 and I have arrived 16th and Mission. Completing the latest leg in my journey. And I see a Muni bus coming, so I think that’s how I’m going to complete my transit adventure today. Take the 22 Fillmore and take it over to Bryant Street.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of bus hydraulic system engaging as it lowers to the curb\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A short bus ride later. A quick walk to the station. Into the studio. Paul, welcome! You made it. What the epic journey! What’s the final count on how many modes of transit you took today?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in studio): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well let’s see, I drove my car to the station, took the train, to the ferry, to BART, to the bus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you walked to the ferry…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was some walking in there as well. So I guess that would be six modes of transportation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Quite the feat. Well, this is all in service of answering listener Brian’s question about whether the SMART Train, which connects Sonoma and Marin counties, has improved traffic along the 101 corridor through that section. Many of the drivers on that stretch of road, like you, are trying to get to San Francisco for work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s right, it’s a commute I make just about every day. And I find anecdotally it’s just about as bad as it’s ever been. Driving usually takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work. Today, taking public transit most of the way, took two hours and 40-some minutes. So I think this really illustrates one of the challenges of the SMART train, and it’s true for all of public transit, for that matter, that if you need to transfer and use a few different agencies, it gets less time efficient.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The SMART train is pretty new, so for folks who aren’t familiar – where does the train go?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so SMART opened its first stations back in 2017 and has been gradually expanding its service since then. The plan is to build it out so it connects Cloverdale in the north to Larkspur in the South where the current terminus is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, let’s get to Brian’s question. Just how many people are opting for the train over driving?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well it’s kinda hard to say precisely because commute patterns have changed so much since the pandemic. CalTrans says there is 40% less traffic on 101 between Larkspur and Sonoma Airport Blvd than there was in 2019. But that’s all times of the day, all days of the week, most likely a result of hybrid work environment as well. Eddy Cumins is the SMART General Manager and he did some of his own calculations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So calendar year 2023. SMART carried over 750,000 riders. The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sounds like a lot!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It does, but you have to put that in perspective. Caltrans says the total vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd in a year is more than 1.8 billion. So SMART represents only the tiniest fraction of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, is the answer here that SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the answer, yes. Not yet. But, SMART has only been around for a few years, and they’re still building it out. By contrast, BART has been around since the 70s, and its route has impacted all sorts of things – development around the trains, where offices get built, where other busses or trains link up. These systems tend to get more useful with time. And I should add, SMART is the only Bay Area transit system that saw an increase in riders after the pandemic. That’s in part because they’ve been working hard to change how they offer service to meet the community’s needs better, as Eddy Cummins told us…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings. And so one of the things we did is, we had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yes, and on my commute, I did meet passengers like Jason who brought their bike on the train.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jason, where you coming from?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cotati.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it looks like you took your bike.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, about a 10-minute ride from my house to a SMART station. This morning I’m going to ride from the end of the train into San Francisco. So a little over an hour. I drove in last Thursday, and it took me like 2.5 hours in traffic. And this is going to take me two hours. So, yeah, it’s definitely less stressful than driving to sit around just, you know, read your phone, get some work done or something. You get to be productive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I met him, Jason was actually going to ride from Larkspur into the city, so he was getting his workout for the day as well. And another thing SMART has done to cater to community needs is make it free for school children taking field trips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the smart train. And so that’s beautiful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They also kept reduced-price fares. It’s just a dollar fifty per zone. And they’ve altered the schedule to meet community needs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So who is the SMART train working for, like, right now?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Paul Lancour: Well, on the car I was on today, I met all kinds of folks.\u003c/b>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was able to get a seat, but it was pretty busy. I met kids who are going to school, people commuting within Marin County. And it’s really pretty nice. People generally seem to find it to be a pleasant ride. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groovy music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul, you’ve been a very intrepid reporter to take on this long commute. Thank you for bringing us those answers. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughing\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">my pleasure. I think I’d better start heading home soon if I want to make it before dusk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good luck.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks as always to our support crew: Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Xorje Oliveras, Dan Brekke, Paul Lancour, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Drive safe! Try a boat or a train! And uh … have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Sonoma Marin Area Rapid Transit (SMART) train has been open since 2017, but is it doing its part to take cars off heavily traveled Highway 101?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driving to work every morning on congested roads is no one’s idea of a good time. And the commute on Highway 101 through Sonoma and Marin counties can be an especially laborious journey during mid-week rush hour. In an attempt to relieve congestion, provide greener transportation options and offer more ways for people to travel, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) train opened its first stations in 2017. Since then, it has been building out its system, starting at the southern terminus of Larkspur. Eventually, it will reach all the way to Cloverdale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the train has been in operation for several years now, this train service is still under the radar for a lot of Bay Area residents. Still, on a recent Thursday morning, the Marin and Sonoma residents who rode the train were enthusiastic about the service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I take it every single day that I can because it’s just so much quicker,” said Kelly Smith, who lives in Novato and works in San Rafael. “It’s economical. I get to chat with people on the train. It’s much more relaxing. It’s my favorite way to travel.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other riders agreed that riding the train is much more pleasant than slogging through traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This train corridor, you feel like you’re in Europe,” Scott Warner said. “My health is better, and my mind is better when I get to the office, not having to deal with the jam on the 101.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976622\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976622\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157.jpg\" alt=\"The photo is taken inside the train looking out. Inside are seats in siloutte. Outside is a lush marshland with green grass poking out of a shallow body of water. In the distance a yellow hillside with dry grass rises above the marsh.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1226\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-800x511.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-1020x651.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/GettyImages-1321843157-1536x981.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The views over the marshlands aboard the SMART train as it travels from the Petaluma train station en route to the San Rafael station. \u003ccite>(Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But do these happy riders mean the SMART train is relieving congestion on Highway 101? That’s what Bay Curious listener Brian Auger, who lives in Fairfax, really wants to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a good question, but also a tricky time to answer because in 2024, just a few years after the coronavirus pandemic, traffic and commute patterns have changed a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part three of the Bay Curious transportation episode. Listen to the entire episode below.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3450871318&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The short answer\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A Caltrans spokesperson said there is 40% less traffic on US-101 between Larkspur, in Marin, and Sonoma Airport Blvd — an approximate location for where the SMART train line currently ends — than there was in 2019. But those numbers reflect driving at all times of the day and all days of the week, so they are likely more a product of hybrid work environments than anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calendar year 2023, SMART carried over 750,000 riders,” SMART General Manager Eddy Cumins said. “The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So, if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That sounds like a lot, but to give that number more context, Caltrans said the total annual vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd is more than 1.8 billion. In comparison, the miles traveled on SMART represent only the tiniest fraction of all that travel. And for even further context, SMART’s yearly ridership is close to the number of passengers BART carried each week in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, right now, SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic on US-101.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The longer answer\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The SMART train has only been around for a few years, most of them during or directly after the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended ridership and decimated budgets for transit agencies around the region. SMART is actually the only local transit agency to see an increase in ridership during 2023 as compared to 2019 (the last full year before the pandemic).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also worth considering that the system isn’t fully built yet. Transit systems tend to become more useful the longer they’re around. A system like BART has been operating since the 1970s, and other infrastructure has been built around it. Employers have offices near BART stations, other transit agencies provide links to BART, and easy train access can even drive home prices. SMART hasn’t been around long enough to see much of this effect yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are a small system,” Cumins acknowledged. “We’re not BART. We’re not Caltrain. We have to focus on meeting the needs of the communities we serve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do that, Cumins and his colleagues have been holding listening sessions with community members in Marin and Sonoma to learn how SMART can better serve riders. Right now, the most popular station is Downtown Petaluma and many riders get off in San Rafael or Larkspur. And people who travel on the train with their bikes have been consistent riders, even during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings,” Cumins said. “We had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve also increased service in the middle of the day, held fare prices low and created a new type of monthly commuter pass that reflects the reality of hybrid work schedules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And immediately, we saw a 28% increase in monthly passes,” Cumins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there were more specific needs, like local teachers expressing the need for transportation when taking school kids on field trips. Cumins said they looked at train capacity and saw they might be able to accommodate this request.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off-peak hours, when these kids want to travel, we have capacity there,” he said. “And so between nine and two, they can ride. So we’re now offering free field trips, too, for K-12 students. There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the SMART train. And so that’s beautiful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976625\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976625\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214.jpeg\" alt=\"A green SMART train car sits at a station platform. The train is on the right side, and the platform is on the left. The platform has a few passengers on it in the distance.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/IMG_4214-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The SMART train began operations in 2017 and continues to expand. \u003ccite>(Paul Lancour/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Interestingly, the ridership of SMART doesn’t follow normal commute pattern expectations. While 60% of rides are in the southern direction in the morning — what you might expect — a full 40% are northbound. Students might explain some of those anomalies. Cumins said about 15% of riders on SMART trains are students heading to school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s nice, there’s no problems,” said high school student Louie. “When we come home, it doesn’t feel that crowded. It’s mostly in the morning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SMART is currently building the Windsor station and has several bike lanes under construction or in the planning phase as well. Part of the agency’s mission is to build out the bike path infrastructure in the region at the same time as it builds the rails, so when the system is complete, it should be a bonanza of rails and trails for residents and visitors alike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The one thing [riders] always say is, ‘I cannot believe how clean the train is,’” Cumins said. “The other thing that I hear from people who ride is that the area between Petaluma and Novato may be the most beautiful place on Earth, and it’s a place that you can’t get to unless you’re on the train.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every weekday morning, millions of us Bay Area residents get out of our cozy beds … and embark on mystifying migration unlike any other on planet Earth. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music reminiscent of a nature documentary begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right heading out the door. It is 7:00 on the nose. The sun will not rise for another 20 minutes or so.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Paul Lancour, one of my colleagues at KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leaving my home in Novato. I’m going to make the short drive to the downtown Novato SMART train. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s setting off on a daily ritual so many of us humans make. Not for food or water exactly, like you might expect from the rest of the animal kingdom, but … for work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music shift to hurried 1950s-era productivity music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking about our daily commute, of course. Today, we’ve asked Paul to trade in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">his \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">daily commute by car into KQED’s offices in San Francisco for a public transit bonanza. Along the way, he’ll be riding the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">somewhat\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-new SMART train through Marin County. SMART stands for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, by the way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why are we sending him on this mission? To answer this question from a listener…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian Auger: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Brian Auger. My question is has the North Bay SMART train had any actual impact on relieving traffic on Highway 101?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll be checking in with Paul throughout the episode as he makes his way to the KQED offices to deliver the answer for Brian … but along the way, we’ll answer two other commuter questions. Listener Laurel Hetchinova thinks drivers have gotten a little out of control recently.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are drivers around here maybe more aggressive lately, or is it maybe just me?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her question won a recent Bay Curious public voting round. And then finally, is there an antidote to all this commuting misery floating on the Bay? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, This is Lee from Berkeley. Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service?\u003c/span>\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve got a full episode of good stuff just ahead on Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And oh, it looks like Paul has made it to the Novato Downtown SMART train station…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Train bell and ambi of the train station fades in\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): (\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beep!) That’s me tapping into the fare station here. Train departing at 7:33. \u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Voice over speaker on train says:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next station, Larkspur. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he’s off! Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SPONSOR MESSAGE\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re tackling some of your transit questions today as Paul makes his journey from his Novato home to KQED’s offices in San Francisco. Looks like his ride on the SMART train is complete, and he’s onto the next leg of his journey an hour and a half after it began.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Larkspur ferry getting ready to depart at 8:29. What a lovely morning. Certainly beats sitting in traffic.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of ferry boat pulling away from dock\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll learn soon if the SMART train is making a dent in traffic on Highway 101. But one thing we know Paul won’t be contending with today is aggressive drivers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curious music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our listener, Laurel, feels like the roadways here have gotten spicier than they once were…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>It feels kind of like every time we go out, there are, I don’t know, maybe like half a dozen going 90 to 100 and just weaving in between everybody else.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I remember that it was kind of like that during the initial weeks of shelter-in-place when fewer cars were out on the road but it feels like it’s still happening even though traffic’s back to normal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To help us figure out what’s what, we’ve got Dan Brekke in the studio today. He’s the reporter and editor of In-transit KQED’s daily blog about how we get around. Welcome, Dan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, Olivia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First off, Dan, can you tell us why the pandemic was such a watershed moment on our streets and highways?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, our reality changed overnight from having very crowded roads to much less crowded roads. And so that invited a different kind of behavior. Especially a lot more speeding than we’d ever seen before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m with Laurel. It seems like a lot of dangerous behaviors that picked up during the pandemic and then just have never went away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it turns out there’s a little survey data out there that backs up our impressions. There’s a place at UC Berkeley called the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, or SafeTREC, and they participate in a yearly survey on what drivers feel they’re seeing on the road. And one of the questions that the survey asks is, “Since the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, what is the biggest change in behaviors you have noticed from drivers?” And statewide the most common answer was aggressive driving and road rage, with speeding coming in a close second. So for a lot of folks, at the very least, we’re perceiving that these things are getting worse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. But let’s look at reality. Does the California Highway Patrol have any kind of data to support or refute what so many of us are seeing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer I talked to at the Golden Gate division of the CHP, Andrew Barkley, said that anecdotally, and this is where the CHP comes down, it’s anecdotal evidence. people are seeing it more.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any true scientifically backed answer to say, this is exactly what’s happening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think the most dramatic piece of evidence that is out there is from the first year of the pandemic. I think most of us would agree driving over 100 miles an hour is a pretty serious breach of driving etiquette and probably unsafe. When the pandemic happened, the number of citations doubled from 2019, the full year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year that shelter-at-home orders were in force. So, you know, that number has gone down since 2020, but it hasn’t gone back to where it was before the pandemic started. So that’s, you know, one indicator, objective indicator, of wilder behavior on the road. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So speed is up. But what about reckless driving? Is California Highway Patrol handing out more tickets for that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You hear us referring to reckless driving. Typically, we are referring to three specific violations, and it’s normally a combination of speed, following too close and unsafe lane change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting that the number of those citations is lower for the most part, than it was the last year before the pandemic. So what do we make of that? It isn’t necessarily that people are driving more carefully. It could be that there’s less enforcement. We really don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Driving, we are perceiving it’s getting worse, that’s definitely universal. There are a couple of indicators we are at least speeding a lot more than before the pandemic. But everything kind of looks flat, but we cannot put too much weight into any of this because the big question, of course, is enforcement, which is a moving variable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, there are some other things you can point to. Traffic deaths went up a lot in 2020 and 2021, and continued going up in 2022. They seem to have eased off, declined slightly in California last year, 2023. But the higher number of traffic fatalities, especially in 2020 and 2021, with lower amounts of traffic, points frankly, to speeding. The number of people killed in crashes where speeding was the primary crash factor, as the CHP puts it, was up 16% in California from 2020 to 2021. So, I mean, that’s objective evidence that there’s actual behavior happening that’s leading to some of these things that we’re seeing and that we perceive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Well, Dan Brekke, editor, reporter, traffic whiz for In Transit, KQED’s relatively new transit blog. Thank you for joining us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re welcome. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Synthy piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Let’s check in on Paul, who, last we heard, was on the ferry from Larkspur…\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of downtown San Francisco street\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I’ve arrived. I’m in San Francisco. 10 minutes after 9. So 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving my house. I’m here! The problem is my office is over in the Mission/Potrero Area, miles away from where I am now. So, the journey continues I’m on my way to BART…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of BART train whirring into the station\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh boy, well at least he got to enjoy that scenic ferry ride. I think that ferry riders are probably the happiest bunch of commuters in the region. There’s even a bar on board! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the ferries aren’t the only boats offering transportation on the water.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last fall I noticed tiny yellow boats along the San Francisco shoreline a couple of times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time there’s just one of these bright yellow speed boats roaming along the Embarcadero. They’re easy to spot because they have a cute little black and white checkerboard trim, just like you’d see on a retro car taxi. We sent Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz out to learn more about this boutique transit option.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom shouting to passersby: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">$10 Water Taxi Ride! Save yourself a long boring walk!\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I meet Captain Tom of the San Francisco Water Taxi Company along the Embarcadero at Pier 15. The little yellow boat is pulled up at the Exploratorium…near a small sign that says “Water Taxi.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Best 10 bucks you’ll spend all day! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The water taxis come when you call…or you can make an appointment. There’s no set schedule.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Big step, watch your head\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>One step down, and I’m on the small boat with three bench seats and two captain’s chairs up front.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There’s a top to help protect passengers from sun and spray.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The water taxi operates out of Pier 39. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They make six different stops at popular places along the San Francisco bay front.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Starting from Hyde Street Pier. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near Ghirardelli Square. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To Pier 39. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A popular tourist destination. As well as Pier 15 at the Exploratorium museum.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Pier 1.5, next to the Ferry Building, which is temporarily closed for repairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they go south of the Bay Bridge for a few extra bucks.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park and Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rides north of the bridge cost 10 dollars each … or you can pay fifteen to get a hop-on, hop-off fare to ride all day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick safety chat. Life vests are under the white seats…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After the safety chat we set off north in the 29-foot yellow boat to pick up some passengers at Pier 39. I’m sitting in the co-pilot seat, which swivels, so I’ve got great views…and there are three bench seats behind me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambi of boat speeding up\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I saw an ad on Craigslist. And I went from part-time to full-time, to managing the business in three months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom says the water taxi business took a hit during COVID, but it’s gradually picking back up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you’ve got Angel Island over there, which is an old immigration island. Alcatraz straight ahead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We slow down as we pull into the harbor at Pier 39, a massive liberty ship from WWII, the Jeremiah O’Brien, towering above us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honk horn\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The folks we’re picking up, Jill and her son Reed from Maryland, scheduled their ride. They’re waiting by the water taxi sign at Pier 39.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re visiting to get away from frigid East Coast temperatures. And today, San Francisco is showing off with a beautiful, warm, sunny day.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz to Reed and Jill (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what did you guys think, worth ten bucks?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Reed: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, definitely like the view.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic. I’m not complaining about the traffic, it’s a city. But you’re not familiar with the streets, so to see and drive is extra!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re headed to the Exploratorium for some science fun and then eating and shopping at the Ferry Building before they head back north in the water taxi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom to Jill and Reed (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ll plan on something around 3? So just call me when you get a better idea of your plans. I should be back in the area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since most of the water taxi stops are along the Embarcadero, I thought most of the passengers would be tourists, like Jill. But Captain Tom says it’s actually a 50-50 split with locals.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People will go for walks and they’ll walk out the Embarcadero and then and, especially with their dogs, and they’ll get to up Hyde Street Pier and they’ll just get tired and they don’t want to walk home, you know, another hour, especially if it’s late on a Sunday.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The taxi will also pick you up if you miss the last ferry off Angel Island or want to head over to Tiburon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you haven’t gotten out on San Francisco Bay, you’re missing one of the best things about San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom says there’s a lot of interest in water taxis for commuting, and they’re exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, but gas is expensive and their boats only seat six passengers. It’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we could definitely do it if we could just find a, you know, the right, cost-effective way to do it. And I think electric boats will advance that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says they’re exploring some options. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’ll be a really exciting time period for water travel in the next couple of years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Captain Tom lets me off at Pier 52 near the Chase Center and sets off to pick up his next fare. But not before reminding me about Mutt Mondays…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Mondays, if you bring your dog, you ride for free.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Horn toot + water lapping sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bass guitar music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz. Paul’s journey to the KQED offices continues as he rides up the BART escalator.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">9:33 and I have arrived 16th and Mission. Completing the latest leg in my journey. And I see a Muni bus coming, so I think that’s how I’m going to complete my transit adventure today. Take the 22 Fillmore and take it over to Bryant Street.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sound of bus hydraulic system engaging as it lowers to the curb\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A short bus ride later. A quick walk to the station. Into the studio. Paul, welcome! You made it. What the epic journey! What’s the final count on how many modes of transit you took today?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in studio): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well let’s see, I drove my car to the station, took the train, to the ferry, to BART, to the bus.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you walked to the ferry…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was some walking in there as well. So I guess that would be six modes of transportation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Quite the feat. Well, this is all in service of answering listener Brian’s question about whether the SMART Train, which connects Sonoma and Marin counties, has improved traffic along the 101 corridor through that section. Many of the drivers on that stretch of road, like you, are trying to get to San Francisco for work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s right, it’s a commute I make just about every day. And I find anecdotally it’s just about as bad as it’s ever been. Driving usually takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work. Today, taking public transit most of the way, took two hours and 40-some minutes. So I think this really illustrates one of the challenges of the SMART train, and it’s true for all of public transit, for that matter, that if you need to transfer and use a few different agencies, it gets less time efficient.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The SMART train is pretty new, so for folks who aren’t familiar – where does the train go?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so SMART opened its first stations back in 2017 and has been gradually expanding its service since then. The plan is to build it out so it connects Cloverdale in the north to Larkspur in the South where the current terminus is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, let’s get to Brian’s question. Just how many people are opting for the train over driving?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well it’s kinda hard to say precisely because commute patterns have changed so much since the pandemic. CalTrans says there is 40% less traffic on 101 between Larkspur and Sonoma Airport Blvd than there was in 2019. But that’s all times of the day, all days of the week, most likely a result of hybrid work environment as well. Eddy Cumins is the SMART General Manager and he did some of his own calculations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So calendar year 2023. SMART carried over 750,000 riders. The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sounds like a lot!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It does, but you have to put that in perspective. Caltrans says the total vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd in a year is more than 1.8 billion. So SMART represents only the tiniest fraction of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, is the answer here that SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the answer, yes. Not yet. But, SMART has only been around for a few years, and they’re still building it out. By contrast, BART has been around since the 70s, and its route has impacted all sorts of things – development around the trains, where offices get built, where other busses or trains link up. These systems tend to get more useful with time. And I should add, SMART is the only Bay Area transit system that saw an increase in riders after the pandemic. That’s in part because they’ve been working hard to change how they offer service to meet the community’s needs better, as Eddy Cummins told us…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings. And so one of the things we did is, we had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yes, and on my commute, I did meet passengers like Jason who brought their bike on the train.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jason, where you coming from?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cotati.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it looks like you took your bike.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, about a 10-minute ride from my house to a SMART station. This morning I’m going to ride from the end of the train into San Francisco. So a little over an hour. I drove in last Thursday, and it took me like 2.5 hours in traffic. And this is going to take me two hours. So, yeah, it’s definitely less stressful than driving to sit around just, you know, read your phone, get some work done or something. You get to be productive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I met him, Jason was actually going to ride from Larkspur into the city, so he was getting his workout for the day as well. And another thing SMART has done to cater to community needs is make it free for school children taking field trips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the smart train. And so that’s beautiful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They also kept reduced-price fares. It’s just a dollar fifty per zone. And they’ve altered the schedule to meet community needs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So who is the SMART train working for, like, right now?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Paul Lancour: Well, on the car I was on today, I met all kinds of folks.\u003c/b>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I was able to get a seat, but it was pretty busy. I met kids who are going to school, people commuting within Marin County. And it’s really pretty nice. People generally seem to find it to be a pleasant ride. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groovy music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul, you’ve been a very intrepid reporter to take on this long commute. Thank you for bringing us those answers. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughing\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">my pleasure. I think I’d better start heading home soon if I want to make it before dusk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good luck.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks as always to our support crew: Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Xorje Oliveras, Dan Brekke, Paul Lancour, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Drive safe! Try a boat or a train! And uh … have a great week!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "scooting-along-the-san-francisco-bay-front-in-a-water-taxi",
"title": "Scooting Along the San Francisco Bay Front in a Water Taxi",
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"headTitle": "Scooting Along the San Francisco Bay Front in a Water Taxi | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Views of the water are a central part of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Whether it’s driving over a San Francisco hill only to be met by a sweeping view out towards the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz, cycling up Hawk Hill on the Marin headlands, or walking the wetlands that border much of the shoreline — the bay is always there. But unless you are one of the lucky few who commute by ferry or own a boat, chances are good many of us don’t spend that much time out on the water itself. Which is a bit of a shame, really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Curious listener named Lee Kempf was showing some visitors around San Francisco and noticed yellow boats buzzing along the Embarcadero. She wondered, “Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service? If so, is it a trial run, or is it here to stay? Is it private or municipal?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a sunny February day, I met up with Captain Tom of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfwatertaxi.net/\">San Francisco Water Taxi\u003c/a> company at Pier 15, near the Exploratorium. He’s the head captain of the water taxi business, which has been operating for eight years but is still a little under the radar. It’s a private service but operates with the permission of the San Francisco Port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop in the 29-foot-long boat, painted a cheery yellow with the classic taxi black and white checkerboard along the side, and grab a seat. Captain Tom says the taxi has a capacity for six passengers, but it’s spacious. We fire up the engine and head north to pick up some folks who’ve scheduled a ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we skim along the bayfront, I appreciate a view that I don’t get that often — looking at downtown San Francisco from the water. We passed Coit Tower, piers with buildings that have graffiti I’d never seen before, a decommissioned submarine, real fishing boats and lots of aquatic life. It’s fun to see Alcatraz and Angel islands in the distance, to watch the different types of boats navigate around one another and feel the wind in my hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We slow down to pull into the harbor at Pier 39 and pass the looming hull of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/\">SS Jeremiah O’Brien\u003c/a>, a World War II Liberty Ship that you can board and explore. From the water, it is humongous. With a little toot of the horn, we go around the seawall and glide into a berth where we meet Jill and her son Reed, who are visiting from Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game,” Jill said. The pair are escaping frigid East Coast temperatures for a week of vacation, and they seem impressed with the views of the city from the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic,” Jill said. “I’m not complaining about the traffic. It’s a city. But [when] you’re not familiar with the streets, to see and drive is extra, so this is nice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The nitty gritty\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976608\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976608\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi.jpg\" alt=\"Several yellow boats are tied up at a pier with buildings in the background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Taxi Company runs one of these 18-passenger boats on busy days. They’re also available for private tours. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to do something people could really enjoy,” San Francisco Water Taxi Owner David Thomas said. He had a great experience with a similar service in Baltimore and thought San Francisco should have a low-cost service that gets people out on the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Slowly but surely, people find out,” he said. “It’s the best-kept secret in the bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water taxi has six locations along the Embarcadero. The service operates by appointment or when a patron calls for a ride. It’s not like a bus or train operating on a set schedule. The most northern stop along the bayfront is Hyde Street Pier, near Ghirardelli Square. It also stops at Pier 39, a popular tourist destination, and Pier 15 at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/\">Exploratorium Museum\u003c/a>. They used to stop Pier 1.5, a public dock next to the Ferry Building, but it was damaged during the winter storms of 2023 and is currently undergoing repairs. For a few extra dollars, the taxi will also take riders south of the Bay Bridge to Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park, as well as Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part two in the Bay Curious transportation episode. Listen to the entire episode below.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3450871318&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All rides north of the Bay Bridge cost $10, but a hop-on-hop-off fare is available for $15, which allows a rider to use the service all day. Kids under 15 are $5, and kids under 5 years old are free. Thomas also said chances are good any kids on board will get the chance to drive the boat, too. They also have a promotion called Mutt Mondays — passengers with dogs get to ride for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are some weird dogs and weird dog owners out there, and they make our day,” Thomas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both tourists and locals ride the taxi, in part because it’s a way of getting out on the bay at a lower cost than chartering a tour boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re surprised to see how much people love coming back,” Thomas said. “A lot of people are locals that figured out that by paying 10 bucks they can take their friends out on [what would be a] $50 or $60 tour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The service has been around for eight years, Thomas said, but it took a hit during COVID-19. More recently, interest in water travel, especially for commuting, has picked back up. He’s exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, although it’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone, he said. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/navier-sanfrancisco-water-taxis-18611010.php\">Partnering with electric boats could be one solution\u003c/a>, but he said the technology is still too expensive and limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we could get one at the right price,” Thomas said he’d be interested but doesn’t expect that to happen for another ten years or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And pro tip: If you head to Angel Island but miss the last ferry home, call the San Francisco Water Taxi, and they’ll come and rescue you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Every weekday morning, millions of us Bay Area residents get out of our cozy beds … and embark on mystifying migration unlike any other on planet Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music reminiscent of a nature documentary begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>All right heading out the door. It is 7:00 on the nose. The sun will not rise for another 20 minutes or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>This is Paul Lancour, one of my colleagues at KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>Leaving my home in Novato. I’m going to make the short drive to the downtown Novato SMART train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>He’s setting off on a daily ritual so many of us humans make. Not for food or water exactly, like you might expect from the rest of the animal kingdom, but … for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music shift to hurried 1950s-era productivity music\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m talking about our daily commute, of course. Today, we’ve asked Paul to trade in \u003ci>his \u003c/i>daily commute by car into KQED’s offices in San Francisco for a public transit bonanza. Along the way, he’ll be riding the \u003ci>somewhat\u003c/i>-new SMART train through Marin County. SMART stands for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, by the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Why are we sending him on this mission? To answer this question from a listener…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian Auger: \u003c/b>My name is Brian Auger. My question is has the North Bay SMART train had any actual impact on relieving traffic on Highway 101?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ll be checking in with Paul throughout the episode as he makes his way to the KQED offices to deliver the answer for Brian … but along the way, we’ll answer two other commuter questions. Listener Laurel Hetchinova thinks drivers have gotten a little out of control recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music ends\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>Are drivers around here maybe more aggressive lately, or is it maybe just me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Her question won a recent Bay Curious public voting round. And then finally, is there an antidote to all this commuting misery floating on the Bay?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>Hi, This is Lee from Berkeley. Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service?\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ve got a full episode of good stuff just ahead on Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And oh, it looks like Paul has made it to the Novato Downtown SMART train station…\u003cbr>\n\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Train bell and ambi of the train station fades in\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): (\u003c/b>Beep!) That’s me tapping into the fare station here. Train departing at 7:33. \u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Voice over speaker on train says:\u003c/b> \u003ci>Next station, Larkspur.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And he’s off! Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SPONSOR\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’re tackling some of your transit questions today as Paul makes his journey from his Novato home to KQED’s offices in San Francisco. Looks like his ride on the SMART train is complete, and he’s onto the next leg of his journey an hour and a half after it began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>On the Larkspur ferry getting ready to depart at 8:29. What a lovely morning. Certainly beats sitting in traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of ferry boat pulling away from dock\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ll learn soon if the SMART train is making a dent in traffic on Highway 101. But one thing we know Paul won’t be contending with today is aggressive drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Curious music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our listener, Laurel, feels like the roadways here have gotten spicier than they once were…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova:\u003c/b> It feels kind of like every time we go out, there are, I don’t know, maybe like half a dozen going 90 to 100 and just weaving in between everybody else. And I remember that it was kind of like that during the initial weeks of shelter-in-place when fewer cars were out on the road but it feels like it’s still happening even though traffic’s back to normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>To help us figure out what’s what, we’ve got Dan Brekke in the studio today. He’s the reporter and editor of In-transit KQED’s daily blog about how we get around. Welcome, Dan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Hi, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>First off, Dan, can you tell us why the pandemic was such a watershed moment on our streets and highways?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Well, our reality changed overnight from having very crowded roads to much less crowded roads. And so that invited a different kind of behavior. Especially a lot more speeding than we’d ever seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m with Laurel. It seems like a lot of dangerous behaviors that picked up during the pandemic and then just have never went away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>And it turns out there’s a little survey data out there that backs up our impressions. There’s a place at UC Berkeley called the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, or SafeTREC, and they participate in a yearly survey on what drivers feel they’re seeing on the road. And one of the questions that the survey asks is, “Since the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, what is the biggest change in behaviors you have noticed from drivers?” And statewide the most common answer was aggressive driving and road rage, with speeding coming in a close second. So for a lot of folks, at the very least, we’re perceiving that these things are getting worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Okay. But let’s look at reality. Does the California Highway Patrol have any kind of data to support or refute what so many of us are seeing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>The officer I talked to at the Golden Gate division of the CHP, Andrew Barkley, said that anecdotally, and this is where the CHP comes down, it’s anecdotal evidence. people are seeing it more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>I don’t have any true scientifically backed answer to say, this is exactly what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke:\u003c/b> I think the most dramatic piece of evidence that is out there is from the first year of the pandemic. I think most of us would agree driving over 100 miles an hour is a pretty serious breach of driving etiquette and probably unsafe. When the pandemic happened, the number of citations doubled from 2019, the full year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year that shelter-at-home orders were in force. So, you know, that number has gone down since 2020, but it hasn’t gone back to where it was before the pandemic started. So that’s, you know, one indicator, objective indicator, of wilder behavior on the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Got it. So speed is up. But what about reckless driving? Is California Highway Patrol handing out more tickets for that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>You hear us referring to reckless driving. Typically, we are referring to three specific violations, and it’s normally a combination of speed, following too close and unsafe lane change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>It’s interesting that the number of those citations is lower for the most part, than it was the last year before the pandemic. So what do we make of that? It isn’t necessarily that people are driving more carefully. It could be that there’s less enforcement. We really don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Driving, we are perceiving it’s getting worse, that’s definitely universal. There are a couple of indicators we are at least speeding a lot more than before the pandemic. But everything kind of looks flat, but we cannot put too much weight into any of this because the big question, of course, is enforcement, which is a moving variable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Look, there are some other things you can point to. Traffic deaths went up a lot in 2020 and 2021, and continued going up in 2022. They seem to have eased off, declined slightly in California last year, 2023. But the higher number of traffic fatalities, especially in 2020 and 2021, with lower amounts of traffic, points frankly, to speeding. The number of people killed in crashes where speeding was the primary crash factor, as the CHP puts it, was up 16% in California from 2020 to 2021. So, I mean, that’s objective evidence that there’s actual behavior happening that’s leading to some of these things that we’re seeing and that we perceive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>All right. Well, Dan Brekkie, editor, reporter, traffic whiz for In Transit, KQED’s relatively new transit blog. Thank you for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Synthy piano music\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Let’s check in on Paul, who, last we heard, was on the ferry from Larkspur…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of downtown San Francisco street\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>Well I’ve arrived. I’m in San Francisco. 10 minutes after 9. So 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving my house. I’m here! The problem is my office is over in the Mission/Potrero Area, miles away from where I am now. So, the journey continues I’m on my way to BART…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of BART train whirring into the station\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Oh boy, well at least he got to enjoy that scenic ferry ride. I think that ferry riders are probably the happiest bunch of commuters in the region. There’s even a bar on board!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But the ferries aren’t the only boats offering transportation on the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>Last fall I noticed tiny yellow boats along the San Francisco shoreline a couple of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Most of the time there’s just one of these bright yellow speed boats roaming along the Embarcadero. They’re easy to spot because they have a cute little black and white checkerboard trim, just like you’d see on a retro car taxi. We sent Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz out to learn more about this boutique transit option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom shouting to passersby: \u003c/b>$10 Water Taxi Ride! Save yourself a long boring walk!\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I meet Captain Tom of the San Francisco Water Taxi Company along the Embarcadero at Pier 15. The little yellow boat is pulled up at the Exploratorium…near a small sign that says “Water Taxi.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Best 10 bucks you’ll spend all day!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The water taxis come when you call…or you can make an appointment. There’s no set schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> Big step, watch your head\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>One step down, and I’m on the small boat with three bench seats and two captain’s chairs up front. There’s a top to help protect passengers from sun and spray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>The water taxi operates out of Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They make six different stops at popular places along the San Francisco bay front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Starting from Hyde Street Pier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Near Ghirardelli Square.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>To Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>A popular tourist destination. As well as Pier 15 at the Exploratorium museum,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> Pier 1.5, next to the Ferry Building, which is temporarily closed for repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And they go south of the Bay Bridge for a few extra bucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park and Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Rides north of the bridge cost 10 dollars each … or you can pay fifteen to get a hop-on, hop-off fare to ride all day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Quick safety chat. Life vests are under the white seats…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>After the safety chat we set off north in the 29-foot yellow boat to pick up some passengers at Pier 39. I’m sitting in the co-pilot seat, which swivels, so I’ve got great views…and there are three bench seats behind me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Ambi of boat speeding up\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> I saw an ad on Craigslist. And I went from part-time to full-time, to managing the business in three months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom says the water taxi business took a hit during COVID, but it’s gradually picking back up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>So you’ve got Angel Island over there, which is an old immigration island. Alcatraz straight ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>We slow down as we pull into the harbor at Pier 39, a massive liberty ship from WWII, the Jeremiah O’Brien, towering above us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Honk horn\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The folks we’re picking up, Jill and her son Reed from Maryland, scheduled their ride. They’re waiting by the water taxi sign at Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill: \u003c/b>I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They’re visiting to get away from frigid East Coast temperatures. And today, San Francisco is showing off with a beautiful, warm, sunny day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz to Reed and Jill (in scene): \u003c/b>So what did you guys think, worth ten bucks?\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Reed: \u003c/b>Yeah, definitely like the view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill:\u003c/b> It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic. I’m not complaining about the traffic, it’s a city. But you’re not familiar with the streets, so to see and drive is extra!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They’re headed to the Exploratorium for some science fun and then eating and shopping at the Ferry Building before they head back north in the water taxi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom to Jill and Reed (in scene): \u003c/b>So we’ll plan on something around 3? So just call me when you get a better idea of your plans. I should be back in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Since most of the water taxi stops are along the Embarcadero, I thought most of the passengers would be tourists, like Jill. But Captain Tom says it’s actually a 50-50 split with locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>People will go for walks and they’ll walk out the Embarcadero and then and, especially with their dogs, and they’ll get to up Hyde Street Pier and they’ll just get tired and they don’t want to walk home, you know, another hour, especially if it’s late on a Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The taxi will also pick you up if you miss the last ferry off Angel Island or want to head over to Tiburon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>If you haven’t gotten out on San Francisco Bay, you’re missing one of the best things about San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom says there’s a lot of interest in water taxis for commuting, and they’re exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, but gas is expensive and their boats only seat six passengers. It’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>So we could definitely do it if we could just find a, you know, the right, cost effective way to do it. And I think electric boats will advance that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>He says they’re exploring some options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>I think it’ll be a really exciting time period for water travel in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom lets me off at Pier 52 near the Chase Center and sets off to pick up his next fare. But not before reminding me about Mutt Mondays…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>On Mondays, if you bring your dog, you ride for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Horn toot + water lapping sounds\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Bass guitar music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz. Paul’s journey to the KQED offices continues as he rides up the BART escalator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>9:33 and I have arrived 16th and Mission. Completing the latest leg in my journey. And I see a Muni bus coming, so I think that’s how I’m going to complete my transit adventure today. Take the 22 Fillmore and take it over to Bryant Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of bus hydraulic system engaging as it lowers to the curb\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>A short bus ride later. A quick walk to the station. Into the studio. Paul, welcome! You made it. What the epic journey! What’s the final count on how many modes of transit you took today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in studio): \u003c/b>Well let’s see, I drove my car to the station, took the train, to the ferry, to BART, to the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And you walked to the ferry…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>There was some walking in there as well. So I guess that would be six modes of transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Wow. Quite the feat. Well, this is all in service of answering listener Brian’s question about whether the SMART Train, which connects Sonoma and Marin counties, has improved traffic along the 101 corridor through that section. Many of the drivers on that stretch of road, like you, are trying to get to San Francisco for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>That’s right, it’s a commute I make just about every day. And I find anecdotally it’s just about as bad as it’s ever been. Driving usually takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work. Today, taking public transit most of the way, took two hours and 40-some minutes. So I think this really illustrates one of the challenges of the SMART train, and it’s true for all of public transit, for that matter, that if you need to transfer and use a few different agencies, it gets less time efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The SMART train is pretty new, so for folks who aren’t familiar – where does the train go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yeah, so SMART opened its first stations back in 2017 and has been gradually expanding its service since then. The plan is to build it out so it connects Cloverdale in the north to Larkspur in the South where the current terminus is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Well, let’s get to Brian’s question. Just how many people are opting for the train over driving?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Well it’s kinda hard to say precisely because commute patterns have changed so much since the pandemic. CalTrans says there is 40% less traffic on 101 between Larkspur and Sonoma Airport Blvd than there was in 2019. But that’s all times of the day, all days of the week, most likely a result of hybrid work environment as well. Eddy Cumins is the SMART General Manager and he did some of his own calculations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>So calendar year 2023. SMART carried over 750,000 riders. The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That sounds like a lot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>It does, but you have to put that in perspective. Caltrans says the total vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd in a year is more than 1.8 billion. So SMART represents only the tiniest fraction of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So, is the answer here that SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>That is the answer, yes. Not yet. But SMART has only been around for a few years, and they’re still building it out. By contrast, BART has been around since the 70s, and its route has impacted all sorts of things – development around the trains, where offices get built, where other busses or trains link up. These systems tend to get more useful with time. And I should add, SMART is the only Bay Area transit system that saw an increase in riders after the pandemic. That’s in part because they’ve been working hard to change how they offer service to meet the community’s needs better, as Eddy Cummins told us…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings. And so one of the things we did is, we had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yes, and on my commute, I did meet passengers like Jason who brought their bike on the train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>Jason, where you coming from?\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>Cotati.\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>And it looks like you took your bike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>Yes, about a 10-minute ride from my house to a SMART station. This morning I’m going to ride from the end of the train into San Francisco. So a little over an hour. I drove in last Thursday, and it took me about 2.5 hours in traffic. And this is going to take me two hours. So, yeah, it’s definitely less stressful than driving to sit around just, you know, read your phone, get some work done or something. You get to be productive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>When I met him, Jason was actually going to ride from Larkspur into the city, so he was getting his workout for the day as well. And another thing SMART has done to cater to community needs is make it free for school children taking field trips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the smart train. And so that’s beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>They also kept reduced-price fares. It’s just a dollar fifty per zone. And they’ve altered the schedule to meet community needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So who is the SMART train working for, like, right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Well, on the car I was on today, I met all kinds of folks. I was able to get a seat, but it was pretty busy. I met kids who are going to school, people commuting within Marin County. And it’s really pretty nice. People generally seem to find it to be a pleasant ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Groovy music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Paul, you’ve been a very intrepid reporter to take on this long commute. Thank you for bringing us those answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>laughing\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yeah, absolutely my pleasure. I think I’d better start heading home soon if I want to make it before dusk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Good luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks as always to our support crew: Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Xorje Oliveras, Dan Brekke, Paul Lancour, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Drive safe! Try a boat or a train! And uh … have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Views of the water are a central part of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Whether it’s driving over a San Francisco hill only to be met by a sweeping view out towards the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz, cycling up Hawk Hill on the Marin headlands, or walking the wetlands that border much of the shoreline — the bay is always there. But unless you are one of the lucky few who commute by ferry or own a boat, chances are good many of us don’t spend that much time out on the water itself. Which is a bit of a shame, really.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Curious listener named Lee Kempf was showing some visitors around San Francisco and noticed yellow boats buzzing along the Embarcadero. She wondered, “Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service? If so, is it a trial run, or is it here to stay? Is it private or municipal?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a sunny February day, I met up with Captain Tom of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfwatertaxi.net/\">San Francisco Water Taxi\u003c/a> company at Pier 15, near the Exploratorium. He’s the head captain of the water taxi business, which has been operating for eight years but is still a little under the radar. It’s a private service but operates with the permission of the San Francisco Port.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hop in the 29-foot-long boat, painted a cheery yellow with the classic taxi black and white checkerboard along the side, and grab a seat. Captain Tom says the taxi has a capacity for six passengers, but it’s spacious. We fire up the engine and head north to pick up some folks who’ve scheduled a ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we skim along the bayfront, I appreciate a view that I don’t get that often — looking at downtown San Francisco from the water. We passed Coit Tower, piers with buildings that have graffiti I’d never seen before, a decommissioned submarine, real fishing boats and lots of aquatic life. It’s fun to see Alcatraz and Angel islands in the distance, to watch the different types of boats navigate around one another and feel the wind in my hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We slow down to pull into the harbor at Pier 39 and pass the looming hull of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/\">SS Jeremiah O’Brien\u003c/a>, a World War II Liberty Ship that you can board and explore. From the water, it is humongous. With a little toot of the horn, we go around the seawall and glide into a berth where we meet Jill and her son Reed, who are visiting from Maryland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game,” Jill said. The pair are escaping frigid East Coast temperatures for a week of vacation, and they seem impressed with the views of the city from the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic,” Jill said. “I’m not complaining about the traffic. It’s a city. But [when] you’re not familiar with the streets, to see and drive is extra, so this is nice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The nitty gritty\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11976608\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11976608\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi.jpg\" alt=\"Several yellow boats are tied up at a pier with buildings in the background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/bigwatertaxi-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Taxi Company runs one of these 18-passenger boats on busy days. They’re also available for private tours. \u003ccite>(Katrina Schwartz/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to do something people could really enjoy,” San Francisco Water Taxi Owner David Thomas said. He had a great experience with a similar service in Baltimore and thought San Francisco should have a low-cost service that gets people out on the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Slowly but surely, people find out,” he said. “It’s the best-kept secret in the bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The water taxi has six locations along the Embarcadero. The service operates by appointment or when a patron calls for a ride. It’s not like a bus or train operating on a set schedule. The most northern stop along the bayfront is Hyde Street Pier, near Ghirardelli Square. It also stops at Pier 39, a popular tourist destination, and Pier 15 at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.exploratorium.edu/\">Exploratorium Museum\u003c/a>. They used to stop Pier 1.5, a public dock next to the Ferry Building, but it was damaged during the winter storms of 2023 and is currently undergoing repairs. For a few extra dollars, the taxi will also take riders south of the Bay Bridge to Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park, as well as Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part two in the Bay Curious transportation episode. Listen to the entire episode below.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3450871318&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All rides north of the Bay Bridge cost $10, but a hop-on-hop-off fare is available for $15, which allows a rider to use the service all day. Kids under 15 are $5, and kids under 5 years old are free. Thomas also said chances are good any kids on board will get the chance to drive the boat, too. They also have a promotion called Mutt Mondays — passengers with dogs get to ride for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are some weird dogs and weird dog owners out there, and they make our day,” Thomas said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both tourists and locals ride the taxi, in part because it’s a way of getting out on the bay at a lower cost than chartering a tour boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re surprised to see how much people love coming back,” Thomas said. “A lot of people are locals that figured out that by paying 10 bucks they can take their friends out on [what would be a] $50 or $60 tour.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The service has been around for eight years, Thomas said, but it took a hit during COVID-19. More recently, interest in water travel, especially for commuting, has picked back up. He’s exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, although it’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone, he said. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/navier-sanfrancisco-water-taxis-18611010.php\">Partnering with electric boats could be one solution\u003c/a>, but he said the technology is still too expensive and limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we could get one at the right price,” Thomas said he’d be interested but doesn’t expect that to happen for another ten years or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And pro tip: If you head to Angel Island but miss the last ferry home, call the San Francisco Water Taxi, and they’ll come and rescue you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Every weekday morning, millions of us Bay Area residents get out of our cozy beds … and embark on mystifying migration unlike any other on planet Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music reminiscent of a nature documentary begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>All right heading out the door. It is 7:00 on the nose. The sun will not rise for another 20 minutes or so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>This is Paul Lancour, one of my colleagues at KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>Leaving my home in Novato. I’m going to make the short drive to the downtown Novato SMART train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>He’s setting off on a daily ritual so many of us humans make. Not for food or water exactly, like you might expect from the rest of the animal kingdom, but … for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music shift to hurried 1950s-era productivity music\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m talking about our daily commute, of course. Today, we’ve asked Paul to trade in \u003ci>his \u003c/i>daily commute by car into KQED’s offices in San Francisco for a public transit bonanza. Along the way, he’ll be riding the \u003ci>somewhat\u003c/i>-new SMART train through Marin County. SMART stands for Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, by the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Why are we sending him on this mission? To answer this question from a listener…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian Auger: \u003c/b>My name is Brian Auger. My question is has the North Bay SMART train had any actual impact on relieving traffic on Highway 101?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ll be checking in with Paul throughout the episode as he makes his way to the KQED offices to deliver the answer for Brian … but along the way, we’ll answer two other commuter questions. Listener Laurel Hetchinova thinks drivers have gotten a little out of control recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Music ends\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova: \u003c/b>Are drivers around here maybe more aggressive lately, or is it maybe just me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Her question won a recent Bay Curious public voting round. And then finally, is there an antidote to all this commuting misery floating on the Bay?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>Hi, This is Lee from Berkeley. Does San Francisco finally have a water taxi service?\u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ve got a full episode of good stuff just ahead on Bay Curious. I’m Olivia Allen-Price. And oh, it looks like Paul has made it to the Novato Downtown SMART train station…\u003cbr>\n\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Train bell and ambi of the train station fades in\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): (\u003c/b>Beep!) That’s me tapping into the fare station here. Train departing at 7:33. \u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Voice over speaker on train says:\u003c/b> \u003ci>Next station, Larkspur.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And he’s off! Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SPONSOR\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’re tackling some of your transit questions today as Paul makes his journey from his Novato home to KQED’s offices in San Francisco. Looks like his ride on the SMART train is complete, and he’s onto the next leg of his journey an hour and a half after it began.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>On the Larkspur ferry getting ready to depart at 8:29. What a lovely morning. Certainly beats sitting in traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of ferry boat pulling away from dock\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>We’ll learn soon if the SMART train is making a dent in traffic on Highway 101. But one thing we know Paul won’t be contending with today is aggressive drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Curious music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Our listener, Laurel, feels like the roadways here have gotten spicier than they once were…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel Hetchinova:\u003c/b> It feels kind of like every time we go out, there are, I don’t know, maybe like half a dozen going 90 to 100 and just weaving in between everybody else. And I remember that it was kind of like that during the initial weeks of shelter-in-place when fewer cars were out on the road but it feels like it’s still happening even though traffic’s back to normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>To help us figure out what’s what, we’ve got Dan Brekke in the studio today. He’s the reporter and editor of In-transit KQED’s daily blog about how we get around. Welcome, Dan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Hi, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>First off, Dan, can you tell us why the pandemic was such a watershed moment on our streets and highways?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Well, our reality changed overnight from having very crowded roads to much less crowded roads. And so that invited a different kind of behavior. Especially a lot more speeding than we’d ever seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>I’m with Laurel. It seems like a lot of dangerous behaviors that picked up during the pandemic and then just have never went away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>And it turns out there’s a little survey data out there that backs up our impressions. There’s a place at UC Berkeley called the Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, or SafeTREC, and they participate in a yearly survey on what drivers feel they’re seeing on the road. And one of the questions that the survey asks is, “Since the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, what is the biggest change in behaviors you have noticed from drivers?” And statewide the most common answer was aggressive driving and road rage, with speeding coming in a close second. So for a lot of folks, at the very least, we’re perceiving that these things are getting worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Okay. But let’s look at reality. Does the California Highway Patrol have any kind of data to support or refute what so many of us are seeing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>The officer I talked to at the Golden Gate division of the CHP, Andrew Barkley, said that anecdotally, and this is where the CHP comes down, it’s anecdotal evidence. people are seeing it more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>I don’t have any true scientifically backed answer to say, this is exactly what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke:\u003c/b> I think the most dramatic piece of evidence that is out there is from the first year of the pandemic. I think most of us would agree driving over 100 miles an hour is a pretty serious breach of driving etiquette and probably unsafe. When the pandemic happened, the number of citations doubled from 2019, the full year before the pandemic, to 2020, the year that shelter-at-home orders were in force. So, you know, that number has gone down since 2020, but it hasn’t gone back to where it was before the pandemic started. So that’s, you know, one indicator, objective indicator, of wilder behavior on the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Got it. So speed is up. But what about reckless driving? Is California Highway Patrol handing out more tickets for that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrew Barkley: \u003c/b>You hear us referring to reckless driving. Typically, we are referring to three specific violations, and it’s normally a combination of speed, following too close and unsafe lane change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>It’s interesting that the number of those citations is lower for the most part, than it was the last year before the pandemic. So what do we make of that? It isn’t necessarily that people are driving more carefully. It could be that there’s less enforcement. We really don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Driving, we are perceiving it’s getting worse, that’s definitely universal. There are a couple of indicators we are at least speeding a lot more than before the pandemic. But everything kind of looks flat, but we cannot put too much weight into any of this because the big question, of course, is enforcement, which is a moving variable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>Look, there are some other things you can point to. Traffic deaths went up a lot in 2020 and 2021, and continued going up in 2022. They seem to have eased off, declined slightly in California last year, 2023. But the higher number of traffic fatalities, especially in 2020 and 2021, with lower amounts of traffic, points frankly, to speeding. The number of people killed in crashes where speeding was the primary crash factor, as the CHP puts it, was up 16% in California from 2020 to 2021. So, I mean, that’s objective evidence that there’s actual behavior happening that’s leading to some of these things that we’re seeing and that we perceive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>All right. Well, Dan Brekkie, editor, reporter, traffic whiz for In Transit, KQED’s relatively new transit blog. Thank you for joining us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dan Brekke: \u003c/b>You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Synthy piano music\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Let’s check in on Paul, who, last we heard, was on the ferry from Larkspur…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of downtown San Francisco street\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>Well I’ve arrived. I’m in San Francisco. 10 minutes after 9. So 2 hours and 10 minutes after leaving my house. I’m here! The problem is my office is over in the Mission/Potrero Area, miles away from where I am now. So, the journey continues I’m on my way to BART…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of BART train whirring into the station\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Oh boy, well at least he got to enjoy that scenic ferry ride. I think that ferry riders are probably the happiest bunch of commuters in the region. There’s even a bar on board!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>But the ferries aren’t the only boats offering transportation on the water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lee: \u003c/b>Last fall I noticed tiny yellow boats along the San Francisco shoreline a couple of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Most of the time there’s just one of these bright yellow speed boats roaming along the Embarcadero. They’re easy to spot because they have a cute little black and white checkerboard trim, just like you’d see on a retro car taxi. We sent Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz out to learn more about this boutique transit option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom shouting to passersby: \u003c/b>$10 Water Taxi Ride! Save yourself a long boring walk!\u003ci> \u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>I meet Captain Tom of the San Francisco Water Taxi Company along the Embarcadero at Pier 15. The little yellow boat is pulled up at the Exploratorium…near a small sign that says “Water Taxi.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Best 10 bucks you’ll spend all day!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The water taxis come when you call…or you can make an appointment. There’s no set schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> Big step, watch your head\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>One step down, and I’m on the small boat with three bench seats and two captain’s chairs up front. There’s a top to help protect passengers from sun and spray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>The water taxi operates out of Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They make six different stops at popular places along the San Francisco bay front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Starting from Hyde Street Pier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Near Ghirardelli Square.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>To Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>A popular tourist destination. As well as Pier 15 at the Exploratorium museum,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> Pier 1.5, next to the Ferry Building, which is temporarily closed for repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>And they go south of the Bay Bridge for a few extra bucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Pier 40 and Oracle Baseball Park and Pier 52 at Chase Basketball Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Rides north of the bridge cost 10 dollars each … or you can pay fifteen to get a hop-on, hop-off fare to ride all day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>Quick safety chat. Life vests are under the white seats…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>After the safety chat we set off north in the 29-foot yellow boat to pick up some passengers at Pier 39. I’m sitting in the co-pilot seat, which swivels, so I’ve got great views…and there are three bench seats behind me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Ambi of boat speeding up\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom:\u003c/b> I saw an ad on Craigslist. And I went from part-time to full-time, to managing the business in three months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom says the water taxi business took a hit during COVID, but it’s gradually picking back up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>So you’ve got Angel Island over there, which is an old immigration island. Alcatraz straight ahead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>We slow down as we pull into the harbor at Pier 39, a massive liberty ship from WWII, the Jeremiah O’Brien, towering above us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Honk horn\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The folks we’re picking up, Jill and her son Reed from Maryland, scheduled their ride. They’re waiting by the water taxi sign at Pier 39.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill: \u003c/b>I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I’m game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They’re visiting to get away from frigid East Coast temperatures. And today, San Francisco is showing off with a beautiful, warm, sunny day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz to Reed and Jill (in scene): \u003c/b>So what did you guys think, worth ten bucks?\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Reed: \u003c/b>Yeah, definitely like the view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jill:\u003c/b> It’s a nice way to ride and see without the traffic. I’m not complaining about the traffic, it’s a city. But you’re not familiar with the streets, so to see and drive is extra!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>They’re headed to the Exploratorium for some science fun and then eating and shopping at the Ferry Building before they head back north in the water taxi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom to Jill and Reed (in scene): \u003c/b>So we’ll plan on something around 3? So just call me when you get a better idea of your plans. I should be back in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Since most of the water taxi stops are along the Embarcadero, I thought most of the passengers would be tourists, like Jill. But Captain Tom says it’s actually a 50-50 split with locals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>People will go for walks and they’ll walk out the Embarcadero and then and, especially with their dogs, and they’ll get to up Hyde Street Pier and they’ll just get tired and they don’t want to walk home, you know, another hour, especially if it’s late on a Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>The taxi will also pick you up if you miss the last ferry off Angel Island or want to head over to Tiburon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>If you haven’t gotten out on San Francisco Bay, you’re missing one of the best things about San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom says there’s a lot of interest in water taxis for commuting, and they’re exploring more cross-bay and southern routes, but gas is expensive and their boats only seat six passengers. It’s hard to find a price point that works for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>So we could definitely do it if we could just find a, you know, the right, cost effective way to do it. And I think electric boats will advance that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>He says they’re exploring some options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>I think it’ll be a really exciting time period for water travel in the next couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Katrina Schwartz: \u003c/b>Captain Tom lets me off at Pier 52 near the Chase Center and sets off to pick up his next fare. But not before reminding me about Mutt Mondays…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Captain Tom: \u003c/b>On Mondays, if you bring your dog, you ride for free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Horn toot + water lapping sounds\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003ci>Bass guitar music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That was Bay Curious producer Katrina Schwartz. Paul’s journey to the KQED offices continues as he rides up the BART escalator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in scene): \u003c/b>9:33 and I have arrived 16th and Mission. Completing the latest leg in my journey. And I see a Muni bus coming, so I think that’s how I’m going to complete my transit adventure today. Take the 22 Fillmore and take it over to Bryant Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Sound of bus hydraulic system engaging as it lowers to the curb\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>A short bus ride later. A quick walk to the station. Into the studio. Paul, welcome! You made it. What the epic journey! What’s the final count on how many modes of transit you took today?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour (in studio): \u003c/b>Well let’s see, I drove my car to the station, took the train, to the ferry, to BART, to the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>And you walked to the ferry…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>There was some walking in there as well. So I guess that would be six modes of transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Wow. Quite the feat. Well, this is all in service of answering listener Brian’s question about whether the SMART Train, which connects Sonoma and Marin counties, has improved traffic along the 101 corridor through that section. Many of the drivers on that stretch of road, like you, are trying to get to San Francisco for work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>That’s right, it’s a commute I make just about every day. And I find anecdotally it’s just about as bad as it’s ever been. Driving usually takes me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work. Today, taking public transit most of the way, took two hours and 40-some minutes. So I think this really illustrates one of the challenges of the SMART train, and it’s true for all of public transit, for that matter, that if you need to transfer and use a few different agencies, it gets less time efficient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>The SMART train is pretty new, so for folks who aren’t familiar – where does the train go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yeah, so SMART opened its first stations back in 2017 and has been gradually expanding its service since then. The plan is to build it out so it connects Cloverdale in the north to Larkspur in the South where the current terminus is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Well, let’s get to Brian’s question. Just how many people are opting for the train over driving?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Well it’s kinda hard to say precisely because commute patterns have changed so much since the pandemic. CalTrans says there is 40% less traffic on 101 between Larkspur and Sonoma Airport Blvd than there was in 2019. But that’s all times of the day, all days of the week, most likely a result of hybrid work environment as well. Eddy Cumins is the SMART General Manager and he did some of his own calculations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>So calendar year 2023. SMART carried over 750,000 riders. The average trip length of those riders is 22.2 miles. So if you do that math, that equates to 16.6 million passenger miles on the train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>That sounds like a lot!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>It does, but you have to put that in perspective. Caltrans says the total vehicle miles traveled between Larkspur and Airport Blvd in a year is more than 1.8 billion. So SMART represents only the tiniest fraction of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So, is the answer here that SMART is not making a very big dent in traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>That is the answer, yes. Not yet. But SMART has only been around for a few years, and they’re still building it out. By contrast, BART has been around since the 70s, and its route has impacted all sorts of things – development around the trains, where offices get built, where other busses or trains link up. These systems tend to get more useful with time. And I should add, SMART is the only Bay Area transit system that saw an increase in riders after the pandemic. That’s in part because they’ve been working hard to change how they offer service to meet the community’s needs better, as Eddy Cummins told us…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>We noticed a significant increase in bicycle boardings. And so one of the things we did is, we had some flip seats on the side of the train. We removed those seats in order to create additional bicycle parking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yes, and on my commute, I did meet passengers like Jason who brought their bike on the train.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>Jason, where you coming from?\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>Cotati.\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paul Lancour to Jason (in scene): \u003c/b>And it looks like you took your bike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jason to Paul (in scene): \u003c/b>Yes, about a 10-minute ride from my house to a SMART station. This morning I’m going to ride from the end of the train into San Francisco. So a little over an hour. I drove in last Thursday, and it took me about 2.5 hours in traffic. And this is going to take me two hours. So, yeah, it’s definitely less stressful than driving to sit around just, you know, read your phone, get some work done or something. You get to be productive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>When I met him, Jason was actually going to ride from Larkspur into the city, so he was getting his workout for the day as well. And another thing SMART has done to cater to community needs is make it free for school children taking field trips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eddy Cumins: \u003c/b>There was a field trip last week and the kids all wrote us letters thanking the smart train. And so that’s beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>They also kept reduced-price fares. It’s just a dollar fifty per zone. And they’ve altered the schedule to meet community needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>So who is the SMART train working for, like, right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Well, on the car I was on today, I met all kinds of folks. I was able to get a seat, but it was pretty busy. I met kids who are going to school, people commuting within Marin County. And it’s really pretty nice. People generally seem to find it to be a pleasant ride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Groovy music begins\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Paul, you’ve been a very intrepid reporter to take on this long commute. Thank you for bringing us those answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>laughing\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Lancour: \u003c/b>Yeah, absolutely my pleasure. I think I’d better start heading home soon if I want to make it before dusk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Good luck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and me, Olivia Allen-Price. Thanks as always to our support crew: Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Xorje Oliveras, Dan Brekke, Paul Lancour, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family. Drive safe! Try a boat or a train! And uh … have a great week!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "from-ghirardelli-to-socola-unwrapping-sfs-chocolate-history",
"title": "From Ghirardelli to Socola: Unwrapping SF's Chocolate History",
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"headTitle": "From Ghirardelli to Socola: Unwrapping SF’s Chocolate History | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several foods that have become synonymous with the San Francisco Bay Area: sourdough bread, Mission-style burritos, dim sum from Chinatown, bahn mi in San José. And then, there’s chocolate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region is home to some of the oldest American chocolate companies —\u003ca href=\"https://www.ghirardelli.com/\"> Ghirardelli\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.guittard.com/\">Guittard\u003c/a>. But when Bay Curious listener Beth Caissie moved here, she came to realize the Bay Area has a thriving modern chocolate scene, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like everything from big chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard to smaller ones like Dandelion,” she said. “And then there’s the guy who makes truffles in North Beach, and there’s a chocolate cafe in South Park.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It got her wondering why this region is so rich with chocolate makers. She asked, “Does it have something to do with the Gold Rush?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Gold Rush does play a part in the Bay Area’s chocolate history, but that’s just the beginning of the region’s rich, chocolatey story.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Selling miners a luxury product\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11707699/why-burlingame-smells-like-chocolate\">Etienne Guittard\u003c/a> immigrated to California from Tournus, France, in search of gold. His uncle owned a chocolate factory, so he brought some bars to trade for mining supplies. After three years of failed mining, Guittard realized other miners would pay a premium for chocolate. He returned to France to perfect his craft and then opened Guittard Chocolate in 1868 on Sansome Street in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast to Guittard, who originally immigrated with dreams of striking gold, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ghirardelli.com/about-ghirardelli-history\">Domenico Ghirardelli\u003c/a> recognized from the beginning that the real money was in provisioning the miners themselves. He opened a general store in Stockton to supply miners with basic food supplies, including chocolate. He already knew how to turn cocoa beans into chocolate bars because of his experience working for chocolatiers in his hometown of Genoa, Italy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-1850s, he established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in what is today known as Ghirardelli Square, on the bayfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Port cities were often the places that chocolate [businesses] started because you had to get the beans here,” said Greg D’Alesandre, chief sourcing officer at \u003ca href=\"https://www.dandelionchocolate.com/pages/aboutus\">Dandelion Chocolate\u003c/a>. “As opposed to a lot of other industries that could pop up in other parts of the United States, chocolate had to start on the coasts because that’s where you can get the cocoa beans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because the raw materials for chocolate were readily available in San Francisco, and companies like Ghirardelli and Guittard were making raw chocolate, it was only natural for chocolatiers to build their businesses here, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Part of the reason See’s Candies has been around for a long time is that they used Guittard chocolate,” D’Alesandre said. “They had a source of chocolate very nearby, so it’s one of those things where industries grow around other [related] industries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same general trend happened in East Coast port cities like New York and Boston, leading to candy giants like the Hershey Company, which eventually set up its factory in Pennsylvania. But Hershey marketed its products to children, pumping out high volumes of cheaper, sweet chocolate filled with preservatives to keep chocolate shelf-stable for years. In contrast, on the West Coast, chocolate has always been treated as a “sort of specialty product,” D’Alesandre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as the population of San Francisco has grown and changed over the decades, the tradition of specialty chocolate has evolved and diversified its flavors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tasty twist on chocolate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Asian woman in chef's whites leans on a table next to a stack of red boxes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEO and Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu poses for a portrait at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wendy and Susan Lieu grew up in Santa Rosa, often helping out at the family’s nail salon business. But the two girls preferred to spend their time across the street at the mall. The first store they’d see when entering was See’s Candies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would sample the same flavors [every time],” Wendy Lieu said. “I wanted to learn how to make [chocolates], so I found a recipe in Gourmet magazine for a mocha espresso chocolate. I was instantly enamored with chocolate and wanted to learn how to make more flavors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lieu sisters opened up a stand at their local farmers market in 2001 and started selling chocolates. They started out with similar flavors to the ones they had sampled at See’s Candies, but they worried their business wouldn’t stand out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Year of the Dragon boxes sit on a counter at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were never going to fit in,” Lieu said. “If we said the definition for a chocolatier is [someone who] had to make these European-style chocolates with these typical flavors, there’s always going to be someone with better credentials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, they pivoted into trying flavors outside the box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought it was an interesting challenge to come up with new flavors because, honestly, I was getting pretty bored making the same dark chocolate, raspberry, caramel, milk chocolate flavors that people like,” Lieu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started making treats inspired by friends and loyal customers: a handmade marshmallow wrapped in caramel and dipped in chocolate called an “Esther Bomb.” Then came the “Big Fat Susan,” a hunk of ganache dipped in 70%-cocoa Scharffen Berger chocolate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the farmer’s market, customers would regularly ask them about their company’s name — \u003ca href=\"https://www.socolachocolates.com/\">Socola\u003c/a>. It means chocolate in Vietnamese. When people discovered that, they clamored for flavors inspired by Vietnamese food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slowly, the sister team started playing with flavors like Vietnamese chicory coffee, durian, passionfruit and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was more fun and more interesting to come up with flavors that reflected our heritage,” Wendy Lieu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEO and Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu packages The Year of the Dragon Box chocolates at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And customers loved trying something new and different. In 2014, the company hit a milestone by opening a brick-and-mortar store on Rincon Hill in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Socola was struggling like many retail businesses. So Wendy Lieu decided to create a box of bonbons with flavors purely inspired by traditional Vietnamese flavors: jasmine tea, pho, sriracha and others. She called it the Little Saigon Box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was going to bet on myself, my heritage and my culture and see where it goes because I had nothing to lose,” she said. “It’s now our best-selling box.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After releasing the Little Saigon Box, Lieu was also surprised to see more Vietnamese customers try out her chocolates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Vietnamese people don’t eat chocolate, but then people were showing up and gifting them to their family,” she said. “They would say, ‘This is a really good way to connect to my family.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new wave of Asian American chocolatiers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An Asian woman in a pink headband and apron leans over rows of red chocolates, carefully adding gold leaf decoration.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang decorates the Asian ‘Twix’ bar at her business, Formosa Chocolates, in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Socola was one of the first Vietnamese-run chocolate companies in the country and has inspired other chocolatiers of color to put their own spin on the confection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kimberly Yang founded \u003ca href=\"https://www.formosachocolates.com/\">Formosa Chocolates\u003c/a> in 2019. Her chocolate shop features Taiwanese-inspired flavors, like Kavalan whisky ganache, calamansi citrus cheesecake bars and flavors she has encountered in her travels around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I studied chocolate in Belgium, and one of the flavors I fell in love with was orange speculoos,” she said. “So that flavor has become pretty standard for me since then.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yang’s journey into the chocolate world has been circuitous. She grew up in Oklahoma and studied medicine to become a psychiatrist. She moved to the Bay Area to work for Kaiser in Oakland. But she always had a creative outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love cooking, and when I had vacation, I would do things like go to Italy to learn how to make pasta,” she said. “I saw the International Culinary Center in New York was offering a chocolate boot camp, and I love chocolate. I thought I’ll go to this intensive boot camp and get it out of my system. I came back, and I was still obsessed with chocolate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974605\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974605\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Pair of gloved hands hold a red heart shaped mold for making chocolates.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang holds a heart mold at Formosa Chocolates in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She started buying textbooks on chocolate making and fantasizing about the various fillings she could create in her home kitchen. But making chocolate outside of a professional kitchen is tricky, and her work in psychiatry was increasingly grueling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just got to the point where I was feeling burnt out with medicine,” she said. “So I thought, maybe I’d try my hand at starting a chocolate company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She debuted her bonbons in November 2019 at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/sftangomarathon/\">San Francisco Tango Marathon\u003c/a>. A few months later, the pandemic hit, and she was stuck with lots of chocolate treats and nowhere to sell them. She had to figure out a direct-to-consumer strategy if her fledgling business was going to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wasn’t familiar with mail order businesses, so it was definitely a challenge learning all the little bits, like what’s the best way to ship [chocolates] with ice packs, cushioning, all that stuff,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang decorates the Asian ‘Twix’ bar at her business, Formosa Chocolates, in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But eventually, she found a groove. She released limited edition bonbons for the Lunar New Year and Mid Autumn Festival. \u003ca href=\"https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/where-to-order-chocolates-for-mother-s-day\">The Michelin Guide\u003c/a> featured Formosa Chocolates in a list of the best chocolates to buy for Mother’s Day. Bon Appetit included them in a list of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.bonappetit.com/story/best-chocolates-to-buy-online\">The Best Chocolates To Buy Online Right Now,”\u003c/a> and last year, the State Department approached her to make more than 3,000 bonbon boxes for the APEC Summit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was a lot,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get such a big order again. It’s good to know I can handle it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s eager to experiment with new flavors, some more savory and spicy than sweet. And she’s confident that, at least in the Bay Area, there will always be customers eager to try new things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Customers are excited to discover the company and support it,” she said. “I’m not so sure I would be able to pull this off elsewhere in the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When you think of food and San Francisco, there are probably a few things that come to mind … sourdough bread from Boudin or Acme, maybe burritos in the Mission or dim sum in Chinatown.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And then … there’s chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Relaxed piano music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Of course, I had heard of Ghirardelli chocolates, everybody, you know, it’s sort of synonymous with San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Beth Caissie moved to San Francisco in the middle of 2020. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m a newcomer here and I’m a geologist. I work for the US Geological Survey.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when she’s not collecting sediment cores from the Bering Sea — something she actually did this past summer — she’s probably eating chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: I’m really into chocolate. I drink a mocha every single morning. And, you know, I feel like there’s two kinds of mocha drinkers. There’s like people who just like something sweet and then there’s people who really like chocolate. And I’m the chocolate variety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she noticed San Francisco has a lot of chocolate makers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like everything from big chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard and then, you know, smaller ones like Dandelion. There’s like a guy who makes truffles in North Beach and there’s like a chocolate cafe in South Park. So I was like, oh, my gosh, what’s happening in San Francisco? Why are there so many chocolate makers? And my question really is like, does it have something to do with the Gold Rush?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious theme music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is Bay Curious, the podcast that explores the Bay Area one question at a time. I’m Olivia Allen Price. Today, we’re going to dive into the rich Bay Area chocolate scene and understand why San Francisco’s history and location created the perfect conditions for chocolate makers — both then and now. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To answer Beth Caissie’s question about what has made San Francisco such a notable chocolate town, we turn to — Reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi, who is quite the lover of chocolate herself…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our question-asker, Beth, is on the right track. The Gold Rush does have a part to play in the Bay Area’s chocolate scene. In many ways, the story of chocolate here is one of immigration and ingenuity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Classic Italian lute music to set the scene\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gold Rush brought around 300,000 people to San Francisco in the mid-1800s from all over the world — and they were \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hungry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Domenico Ghirardelli and Etienne Guittard were two European immigrants who opened general stores to meet the need. They would go on to form two of the oldest and most iconic San Francisco chocolate companies. Maybe you’ve heard of them — Ghirardelli and Guittard.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Guittard and Ghiradelli started because they wanted to sell chocolate to people who were getting gold.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Greg D’Alesandre is Dandelion Chocolate’s Chief Sourcing Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sometimes go by chocolate sorcerer\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says it makes sense that chocolate would come to San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Port cities were often the places where chocolate started and cocoa started because you had to get the beans here. The beans weren’t being grown here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">East Coast port cities like New York and Boston also had new chocolate companies. But West Coast chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard set themselves apart by marketing their chocolate as a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">luxury\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> product. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Much the same way people did with coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Old Ghirardelli Ad: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This Ghirardelli square is no ordinary chocolate… ”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Big chocolate companies like Guittard and Ghirardelli got the ball rolling, making raw chocolate, from the cocoa bean into bars. It was only natural for other confectioners, or people who make things out of the chocolate, to open shop in the same area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of people know See’s Candy. They use Guittard chocolate. Like they had a source of chocolate very nearby. And so it’s one of these things of like, you know like industries grow around the industries they need to support them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here’s where San Francisco’s chocolate history gets really interesting. We had access to the cocoa beans through shipping. And old-school chocolate companies making high quality raw chocolate. But it’s the creativity and knowledge of San Francisco’s diverse population — folks from Europe, Asia, Latin America and beyond — that elevated those raw materials into truly magical chocolate treats. If you look at the many chocolatiers in the Bay Area today, many of them have built their businesses by putting their own cultural twist on chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music playing over the sound of a person scooping chocolate chips into a bowl\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m standing inside Socola, a chocolate shop in downtown San Francisco. Wendy Lieu, the founder of the company, opens huge boxes filled with Guittard chocolate chips — called “callets” — and scoops them into a bowl to start melting them down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scooping sound of chocolate chips continues\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She started Socola in 2001 with her sister, Susan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We were teenagers at the time, growing up in Santa Rosa. Our parents had a nail salon, so that meant every day after school, we’d go there to help out. And of course, we really didn’t enjoy doing that. We’d rather go across the street to the mall, and the first store in the mall was See’s Candies.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wendy and Susan tried all the samples and soon got used to the classic flavors of vanilla and chocolate buttercream, peanut butter, butterscotch — you know the drill. One day, Wendy decided to try making her own chocolate treats. She started with the bonbon, a chocolate shell with a ganache center. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I found a recipe in Gourmet magazine for a mocha espresso chocolate. And I was instantly, like, enamored with chocolate and wanting to learn how to make it. Make more chocolates in more flavors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She and Susan started selling chocolate at their local farmer’s market stand. At first, they were making the same flavors they had seen at See’s Candies, but they felt like they were playing a game they’d never win. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s going to be someone with better credentials and trained skills of like, ‘Oh, I, we trained with this person,’ and you know that for a chocolatier, that kind of sounds better. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When they started, Wendy and Susan didn’t have all that fancy training. So the sister team decided to pivot. Farmer’s market customers were curious about the company’s name — Socola means chocolate in Vietnamese — and when they found out, they’d ask for Vietnamese flavors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Like, “Oh, make a coffee flavor.” And I was like\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that sounds interesting. But I also don’t want it to be boring. So can we make it Vietnamese coffee and add some condensed milk to it?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music evoking creativity begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then we kind of just started doing that where someone was like, “Oh, make us spicy chocolate.” And I was like, “I won’t make chili, but I’ll make Sriracha.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years after that farmer’s market start in 2001, Socola started releasing bonbons with flavors like durian, passion fruit— even pho, like the Vietnamese soup. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then it was more fun and more interesting to come up with flavors that reflected our heritage. Right? So it was like, let’s make chocolates that flavors that don’t exist. And then no one can compare those. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I talk to Wendy, she hands me one of her latest creations: a pandan coconut bonbon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi (in tape)\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: (\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">crunch noise as she bites into chocolate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">) Mmm! Wow.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pandan is so subtle and yet it kind of hits you at the end. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can’t totally figure out how the chocolate flavors are working. Honestly, it’s just sorcery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2014, Socola hit a milestone, opening a brick-and-mortar shop in Rincon Hill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I feel a lot of happiness, representing our heritage and our culture and that, you know, we’re, you know, part of mainstream chocolate now. And before then, there were no other Vietnamese chocolatiers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music evoking the Lunar New Year\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco’s early chocolate makers were predominantly from European countries. But that’s slowly changing as pioneers like Wendy and Susan at Socola pave the way for more experimentation. In the last decades, the Bay Area has seen an explosion of new chocolatiers of color, many of them women, who are boldly playing with flavors in these bite-sized, edible pieces of art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fade in sounds from a visit to Formosa Chocolates\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is toffee and black sesame and dark chocolate. And, just in the shape of a dragon for the Lunar New Year.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Kimberly Yang, a Taiwanese American chocolatier based in San Rafael. She owns the company Formosa Chocolates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Formosa is the old name for Taiwan. When the Portuguese sailors first saw the coastline, they said it was a beautiful island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly grew up in Oklahoma and, like so many first-generation immigrants, struggled to claim her cultural identity in such a different place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I didn’t have a lot of Taiwanese friends, let alone Asian friends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She became a psychiatrist and moved to the Bay Area for a job with Kaiser. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I moved to the Bay Area, I just started to notice that there’s more of this community\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>Psychiatry was exhausting, so to get away from her stress, Kimberly took chocolate-making classes.\u003c/span> She discovered a passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It just got to the point where I was just feeling kind of burnt out with medicine, and I thought maybe try my hand at starting a chocolate company.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sounds from Yang’s kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly’s industrial kitchen is vast and gleaming. She’s piping fine lines of chocolate onto her “Asian Twix bars” — one of her signature candies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Twix is one of my favorite candy bars to eat, and I think so many times customers ask, like, so what’s Taiwanese about your company? And mostly it’s me. I’m Taiwanese. But I thought I needed to lean more into Asian-inspired flavors. And I thought miso and caramel goes together so wonderfully. And I’ve been wanting to do more things with black sesame, so it’s just made it black sesame shortbread.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of her other innovative flavors include balsamic vinegar caramel and strawberry bonbons shaped like an anatomically correct heart, gold-dusted bonbons with Taiwanese Kavalan whiskey and honey ganache. When she started the company in the fall of 2019 she was full of hope. Then the pandemic hit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Well, initially, I just had all this inventory on my hands and it’s like, oh, gosh, there’s nothing more depressing than a chocolatier with nobody to sell their chocolates to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had to find a way to sell directly to consumers. That meant setting up her own website, figuring out how to ship chocolate across the country without it melting or breaking, marketing and customer service.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m the one doing that and it’s not as intuitive as you would think. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music evoking hitting one’s stride\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But eventually Kimberly found a rhythm. She became known for her limited edition Lunar New Year boxes. The Michelin Guide featured Formosa Chocolates, and Bon Appetit Magazine included them in a list of “The Best Chocolates To Buy Online.” Kimberly must have been doing something right because last year, the State Department asked her to make chocolates for the APEC Summit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The ordering went through, and so we made 3,300 boxes of bonbons for the dignitaries.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think I’ll ever get such a big order again. That was a lot. I mean, and it’s good to know that I can handle it. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly plans to keep experimenting. She’d like to try making chocolates that aren’t even sweet but instead play with spicy or umami flavors. And she’s confident that in the Bay Area, at least, there will be people who will want to try them. She’s got the Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncake bonbons to prove it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Growing up, like, I don’t think most people knew what mooncakes were. And maybe most people in America don’t know what mooncakes are, but people in the Bay Area do. It’s really interesting. And it’s nice to not have to explain all of that to people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because in the Bay Area — there’s room for it all: classic bonbons with caramel and raspberry fillings, ganache flavored with pandan, pho or miso. And whatever new invention comes next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many ways, the story of chocolate in the Bay Area is the story of the Bay Area. Lots of people from different places coming together, infusing the tastes and textures of their cultures into everything around them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Relaxed, positive electronic piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi. Thanks to Beth Caissie for asking this week’s question. Have you voted in our February public voting round yet? Here are the questions we’re considering…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 1:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I visit the Great Mall in Milpitas, I see some signs/plaques within the mall commemorating the Ford Motor Company plant that used to be on that same site. What’s the story behind this former plant?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is at the bottom of the bay and is there any treasure down there?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How are canned/jarred artichoke hearts made? What happens to all the outside leaves? Just how many artichokes are grown in California?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Head to BayCurious.org and cast your vote. You don’t need to sign up or login or anything — just click! It’s so easy. And while you’re there check out the Bay Curious archive for any interesting episodes you may have missed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Olivia\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several foods that have become synonymous with the San Francisco Bay Area: sourdough bread, Mission-style burritos, dim sum from Chinatown, bahn mi in San José. And then, there’s chocolate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region is home to some of the oldest American chocolate companies —\u003ca href=\"https://www.ghirardelli.com/\"> Ghirardelli\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.guittard.com/\">Guittard\u003c/a>. But when Bay Curious listener Beth Caissie moved here, she came to realize the Bay Area has a thriving modern chocolate scene, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like everything from big chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard to smaller ones like Dandelion,” she said. “And then there’s the guy who makes truffles in North Beach, and there’s a chocolate cafe in South Park.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It got her wondering why this region is so rich with chocolate makers. She asked, “Does it have something to do with the Gold Rush?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Gold Rush does play a part in the Bay Area’s chocolate history, but that’s just the beginning of the region’s rich, chocolatey story.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Selling miners a luxury product\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11707699/why-burlingame-smells-like-chocolate\">Etienne Guittard\u003c/a> immigrated to California from Tournus, France, in search of gold. His uncle owned a chocolate factory, so he brought some bars to trade for mining supplies. After three years of failed mining, Guittard realized other miners would pay a premium for chocolate. He returned to France to perfect his craft and then opened Guittard Chocolate in 1868 on Sansome Street in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast to Guittard, who originally immigrated with dreams of striking gold, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ghirardelli.com/about-ghirardelli-history\">Domenico Ghirardelli\u003c/a> recognized from the beginning that the real money was in provisioning the miners themselves. He opened a general store in Stockton to supply miners with basic food supplies, including chocolate. He already knew how to turn cocoa beans into chocolate bars because of his experience working for chocolatiers in his hometown of Genoa, Italy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the mid-1850s, he established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in what is today known as Ghirardelli Square, on the bayfront.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Port cities were often the places that chocolate [businesses] started because you had to get the beans here,” said Greg D’Alesandre, chief sourcing officer at \u003ca href=\"https://www.dandelionchocolate.com/pages/aboutus\">Dandelion Chocolate\u003c/a>. “As opposed to a lot of other industries that could pop up in other parts of the United States, chocolate had to start on the coasts because that’s where you can get the cocoa beans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because the raw materials for chocolate were readily available in San Francisco, and companies like Ghirardelli and Guittard were making raw chocolate, it was only natural for chocolatiers to build their businesses here, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Part of the reason See’s Candies has been around for a long time is that they used Guittard chocolate,” D’Alesandre said. “They had a source of chocolate very nearby, so it’s one of those things where industries grow around other [related] industries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The same general trend happened in East Coast port cities like New York and Boston, leading to candy giants like the Hershey Company, which eventually set up its factory in Pennsylvania. But Hershey marketed its products to children, pumping out high volumes of cheaper, sweet chocolate filled with preservatives to keep chocolate shelf-stable for years. In contrast, on the West Coast, chocolate has always been treated as a “sort of specialty product,” D’Alesandre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as the population of San Francisco has grown and changed over the decades, the tradition of specialty chocolate has evolved and diversified its flavors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A tasty twist on chocolate\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Asian woman in chef's whites leans on a table next to a stack of red boxes.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-34-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEO and Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu poses for a portrait at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wendy and Susan Lieu grew up in Santa Rosa, often helping out at the family’s nail salon business. But the two girls preferred to spend their time across the street at the mall. The first store they’d see when entering was See’s Candies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We would sample the same flavors [every time],” Wendy Lieu said. “I wanted to learn how to make [chocolates], so I found a recipe in Gourmet magazine for a mocha espresso chocolate. I was instantly enamored with chocolate and wanted to learn how to make more flavors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lieu sisters opened up a stand at their local farmers market in 2001 and started selling chocolates. They started out with similar flavors to the ones they had sampled at See’s Candies, but they worried their business wouldn’t stand out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974601\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-29-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Year of the Dragon boxes sit on a counter at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were never going to fit in,” Lieu said. “If we said the definition for a chocolatier is [someone who] had to make these European-style chocolates with these typical flavors, there’s always going to be someone with better credentials.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, they pivoted into trying flavors outside the box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thought it was an interesting challenge to come up with new flavors because, honestly, I was getting pretty bored making the same dark chocolate, raspberry, caramel, milk chocolate flavors that people like,” Lieu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started making treats inspired by friends and loyal customers: a handmade marshmallow wrapped in caramel and dipped in chocolate called an “Esther Bomb.” Then came the “Big Fat Susan,” a hunk of ganache dipped in 70%-cocoa Scharffen Berger chocolate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the farmer’s market, customers would regularly ask them about their company’s name — \u003ca href=\"https://www.socolachocolates.com/\">Socola\u003c/a>. It means chocolate in Vietnamese. When people discovered that, they clamored for flavors inspired by Vietnamese food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Slowly, the sister team started playing with flavors like Vietnamese chicory coffee, durian, passionfruit and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was more fun and more interesting to come up with flavors that reflected our heritage,” Wendy Lieu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240131-SOCOLACHOCOLATIER-19-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEO and Chief Chocolatier Wendy Lieu packages The Year of the Dragon Box chocolates at Socola Chocolatier in San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And customers loved trying something new and different. In 2014, the company hit a milestone by opening a brick-and-mortar store on Rincon Hill in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Socola was struggling like many retail businesses. So Wendy Lieu decided to create a box of bonbons with flavors purely inspired by traditional Vietnamese flavors: jasmine tea, pho, sriracha and others. She called it the Little Saigon Box.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was going to bet on myself, my heritage and my culture and see where it goes because I had nothing to lose,” she said. “It’s now our best-selling box.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After releasing the Little Saigon Box, Lieu was also surprised to see more Vietnamese customers try out her chocolates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Vietnamese people don’t eat chocolate, but then people were showing up and gifting them to their family,” she said. “They would say, ‘This is a really good way to connect to my family.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A new wave of Asian American chocolatiers\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"An Asian woman in a pink headband and apron leans over rows of red chocolates, carefully adding gold leaf decoration.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-03-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang decorates the Asian ‘Twix’ bar at her business, Formosa Chocolates, in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Socola was one of the first Vietnamese-run chocolate companies in the country and has inspired other chocolatiers of color to put their own spin on the confection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kimberly Yang founded \u003ca href=\"https://www.formosachocolates.com/\">Formosa Chocolates\u003c/a> in 2019. Her chocolate shop features Taiwanese-inspired flavors, like Kavalan whisky ganache, calamansi citrus cheesecake bars and flavors she has encountered in her travels around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I studied chocolate in Belgium, and one of the flavors I fell in love with was orange speculoos,” she said. “So that flavor has become pretty standard for me since then.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yang’s journey into the chocolate world has been circuitous. She grew up in Oklahoma and studied medicine to become a psychiatrist. She moved to the Bay Area to work for Kaiser in Oakland. But she always had a creative outlet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I love cooking, and when I had vacation, I would do things like go to Italy to learn how to make pasta,” she said. “I saw the International Culinary Center in New York was offering a chocolate boot camp, and I love chocolate. I thought I’ll go to this intensive boot camp and get it out of my system. I came back, and I was still obsessed with chocolate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974605\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974605\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"Pair of gloved hands hold a red heart shaped mold for making chocolates.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang holds a heart mold at Formosa Chocolates in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She started buying textbooks on chocolate making and fantasizing about the various fillings she could create in her home kitchen. But making chocolate outside of a professional kitchen is tricky, and her work in psychiatry was increasingly grueling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just got to the point where I was feeling burnt out with medicine,” she said. “So I thought, maybe I’d try my hand at starting a chocolate company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She debuted her bonbons in November 2019 at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/sftangomarathon/\">San Francisco Tango Marathon\u003c/a>. A few months later, the pandemic hit, and she was stuck with lots of chocolate treats and nowhere to sell them. She had to figure out a direct-to-consumer strategy if her fledgling business was going to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wasn’t familiar with mail order businesses, so it was definitely a challenge learning all the little bits, like what’s the best way to ship [chocolates] with ice packs, cushioning, all that stuff,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11974604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11974604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/02/240201-FORMOSACHOCOLATES-04-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolatier Kimberly Yang decorates the Asian ‘Twix’ bar at her business, Formosa Chocolates, in San Rafael on Feb. 1, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But eventually, she found a groove. She released limited edition bonbons for the Lunar New Year and Mid Autumn Festival. \u003ca href=\"https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/where-to-order-chocolates-for-mother-s-day\">The Michelin Guide\u003c/a> featured Formosa Chocolates in a list of the best chocolates to buy for Mother’s Day. Bon Appetit included them in a list of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.bonappetit.com/story/best-chocolates-to-buy-online\">The Best Chocolates To Buy Online Right Now,”\u003c/a> and last year, the State Department approached her to make more than 3,000 bonbon boxes for the APEC Summit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was a lot,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get such a big order again. It’s good to know I can handle it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s eager to experiment with new flavors, some more savory and spicy than sweet. And she’s confident that, at least in the Bay Area, there will always be customers eager to try new things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Customers are excited to discover the company and support it,” she said. “I’m not so sure I would be able to pull this off elsewhere in the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>When you think of food and San Francisco, there are probably a few things that come to mind … sourdough bread from Boudin or Acme, maybe burritos in the Mission or dim sum in Chinatown.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And then … there’s chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Relaxed piano music begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Of course, I had heard of Ghirardelli chocolates, everybody, you know, it’s sort of synonymous with San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Beth Caissie moved to San Francisco in the middle of 2020. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m a newcomer here and I’m a geologist. I work for the US Geological Survey.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when she’s not collecting sediment cores from the Bering Sea — something she actually did this past summer — she’s probably eating chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: I’m really into chocolate. I drink a mocha every single morning. And, you know, I feel like there’s two kinds of mocha drinkers. There’s like people who just like something sweet and then there’s people who really like chocolate. And I’m the chocolate variety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she noticed San Francisco has a lot of chocolate makers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Beth Caissie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like everything from big chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard and then, you know, smaller ones like Dandelion. There’s like a guy who makes truffles in North Beach and there’s like a chocolate cafe in South Park. So I was like, oh, my gosh, what’s happening in San Francisco? Why are there so many chocolate makers? And my question really is like, does it have something to do with the Gold Rush?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious theme music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is Bay Curious, the podcast that explores the Bay Area one question at a time. I’m Olivia Allen Price. Today, we’re going to dive into the rich Bay Area chocolate scene and understand why San Francisco’s history and location created the perfect conditions for chocolate makers — both then and now. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To answer Beth Caissie’s question about what has made San Francisco such a notable chocolate town, we turn to — Reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi, who is quite the lover of chocolate herself…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our question-asker, Beth, is on the right track. The Gold Rush does have a part to play in the Bay Area’s chocolate scene. In many ways, the story of chocolate here is one of immigration and ingenuity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Classic Italian lute music to set the scene\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gold Rush brought around 300,000 people to San Francisco in the mid-1800s from all over the world — and they were \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hungry\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Domenico Ghirardelli and Etienne Guittard were two European immigrants who opened general stores to meet the need. They would go on to form two of the oldest and most iconic San Francisco chocolate companies. Maybe you’ve heard of them — Ghirardelli and Guittard.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music ends\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Guittard and Ghiradelli started because they wanted to sell chocolate to people who were getting gold.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Greg D’Alesandre is Dandelion Chocolate’s Chief Sourcing Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sometimes go by chocolate sorcerer\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says it makes sense that chocolate would come to San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Port cities were often the places where chocolate started and cocoa started because you had to get the beans here. The beans weren’t being grown here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">East Coast port cities like New York and Boston also had new chocolate companies. But West Coast chocolate makers like Ghirardelli and Guittard set themselves apart by marketing their chocolate as a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">luxury\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> product. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Much the same way people did with coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Old Ghirardelli Ad: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This Ghirardelli square is no ordinary chocolate… ”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Big chocolate companies like Guittard and Ghirardelli got the ball rolling, making raw chocolate, from the cocoa bean into bars. It was only natural for other confectioners, or people who make things out of the chocolate, to open shop in the same area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Greg D’Alesandre:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of people know See’s Candy. They use Guittard chocolate. Like they had a source of chocolate very nearby. And so it’s one of these things of like, you know like industries grow around the industries they need to support them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here’s where San Francisco’s chocolate history gets really interesting. We had access to the cocoa beans through shipping. And old-school chocolate companies making high quality raw chocolate. But it’s the creativity and knowledge of San Francisco’s diverse population — folks from Europe, Asia, Latin America and beyond — that elevated those raw materials into truly magical chocolate treats. If you look at the many chocolatiers in the Bay Area today, many of them have built their businesses by putting their own cultural twist on chocolate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music playing over the sound of a person scooping chocolate chips into a bowl\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m standing inside Socola, a chocolate shop in downtown San Francisco. Wendy Lieu, the founder of the company, opens huge boxes filled with Guittard chocolate chips — called “callets” — and scoops them into a bowl to start melting them down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scooping sound of chocolate chips continues\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She started Socola in 2001 with her sister, Susan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We were teenagers at the time, growing up in Santa Rosa. Our parents had a nail salon, so that meant every day after school, we’d go there to help out. And of course, we really didn’t enjoy doing that. We’d rather go across the street to the mall, and the first store in the mall was See’s Candies.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wendy and Susan tried all the samples and soon got used to the classic flavors of vanilla and chocolate buttercream, peanut butter, butterscotch — you know the drill. One day, Wendy decided to try making her own chocolate treats. She started with the bonbon, a chocolate shell with a ganache center. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I found a recipe in Gourmet magazine for a mocha espresso chocolate. And I was instantly, like, enamored with chocolate and wanting to learn how to make it. Make more chocolates in more flavors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She and Susan started selling chocolate at their local farmer’s market stand. At first, they were making the same flavors they had seen at See’s Candies, but they felt like they were playing a game they’d never win. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s going to be someone with better credentials and trained skills of like, ‘Oh, I, we trained with this person,’ and you know that for a chocolatier, that kind of sounds better. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When they started, Wendy and Susan didn’t have all that fancy training. So the sister team decided to pivot. Farmer’s market customers were curious about the company’s name — Socola means chocolate in Vietnamese — and when they found out, they’d ask for Vietnamese flavors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Like, “Oh, make a coffee flavor.” And I was like\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that sounds interesting. But I also don’t want it to be boring. So can we make it Vietnamese coffee and add some condensed milk to it?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music evoking creativity begins\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then we kind of just started doing that where someone was like, “Oh, make us spicy chocolate.” And I was like, “I won’t make chili, but I’ll make Sriracha.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">”\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years after that farmer’s market start in 2001, Socola started releasing bonbons with flavors like durian, passion fruit— even pho, like the Vietnamese soup. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then it was more fun and more interesting to come up with flavors that reflected our heritage. Right? So it was like, let’s make chocolates that flavors that don’t exist. And then no one can compare those. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I talk to Wendy, she hands me one of her latest creations: a pandan coconut bonbon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi (in tape)\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: (\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">crunch noise as she bites into chocolate\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">) Mmm! Wow.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pandan is so subtle and yet it kind of hits you at the end. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can’t totally figure out how the chocolate flavors are working. Honestly, it’s just sorcery.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2014, Socola hit a milestone, opening a brick-and-mortar shop in Rincon Hill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wendy Lieu:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I feel a lot of happiness, representing our heritage and our culture and that, you know, we’re, you know, part of mainstream chocolate now. And before then, there were no other Vietnamese chocolatiers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Music evoking the Lunar New Year\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco’s early chocolate makers were predominantly from European countries. But that’s slowly changing as pioneers like Wendy and Susan at Socola pave the way for more experimentation. In the last decades, the Bay Area has seen an explosion of new chocolatiers of color, many of them women, who are boldly playing with flavors in these bite-sized, edible pieces of art. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fade in sounds from a visit to Formosa Chocolates\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is toffee and black sesame and dark chocolate. And, just in the shape of a dragon for the Lunar New Year.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Kimberly Yang, a Taiwanese American chocolatier based in San Rafael. She owns the company Formosa Chocolates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Formosa is the old name for Taiwan. When the Portuguese sailors first saw the coastline, they said it was a beautiful island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly grew up in Oklahoma and, like so many first-generation immigrants, struggled to claim her cultural identity in such a different place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I didn’t have a lot of Taiwanese friends, let alone Asian friends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She became a psychiatrist and moved to the Bay Area for a job with Kaiser. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I moved to the Bay Area, I just started to notice that there’s more of this community\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>Psychiatry was exhausting, so to get away from her stress, Kimberly took chocolate-making classes.\u003c/span> She discovered a passion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It just got to the point where I was just feeling kind of burnt out with medicine, and I thought maybe try my hand at starting a chocolate company.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sounds from Yang’s kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly’s industrial kitchen is vast and gleaming. She’s piping fine lines of chocolate onto her “Asian Twix bars” — one of her signature candies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Twix is one of my favorite candy bars to eat, and I think so many times customers ask, like, so what’s Taiwanese about your company? And mostly it’s me. I’m Taiwanese. But I thought I needed to lean more into Asian-inspired flavors. And I thought miso and caramel goes together so wonderfully. And I’ve been wanting to do more things with black sesame, so it’s just made it black sesame shortbread.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of her other innovative flavors include balsamic vinegar caramel and strawberry bonbons shaped like an anatomically correct heart, gold-dusted bonbons with Taiwanese Kavalan whiskey and honey ganache. When she started the company in the fall of 2019 she was full of hope. Then the pandemic hit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Well, initially, I just had all this inventory on my hands and it’s like, oh, gosh, there’s nothing more depressing than a chocolatier with nobody to sell their chocolates to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had to find a way to sell directly to consumers. That meant setting up her own website, figuring out how to ship chocolate across the country without it melting or breaking, marketing and customer service.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m the one doing that and it’s not as intuitive as you would think. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Percussive music evoking hitting one’s stride\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But eventually Kimberly found a rhythm. She became known for her limited edition Lunar New Year boxes. The Michelin Guide featured Formosa Chocolates, and Bon Appetit Magazine included them in a list of “The Best Chocolates To Buy Online.” Kimberly must have been doing something right because last year, the State Department asked her to make chocolates for the APEC Summit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The ordering went through, and so we made 3,300 boxes of bonbons for the dignitaries.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think I’ll ever get such a big order again. That was a lot. I mean, and it’s good to know that I can handle it. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kimberly plans to keep experimenting. She’d like to try making chocolates that aren’t even sweet but instead play with spicy or umami flavors. And she’s confident that in the Bay Area, at least, there will be people who will want to try them. She’s got the Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncake bonbons to prove it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kimberly Yang:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Growing up, like, I don’t think most people knew what mooncakes were. And maybe most people in America don’t know what mooncakes are, but people in the Bay Area do. It’s really interesting. And it’s nice to not have to explain all of that to people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because in the Bay Area — there’s room for it all: classic bonbons with caramel and raspberry fillings, ganache flavored with pandan, pho or miso. And whatever new invention comes next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Adhiti Bandlamudi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In many ways, the story of chocolate in the Bay Area is the story of the Bay Area. Lots of people from different places coming together, infusing the tastes and textures of their cultures into everything around them. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Relaxed, positive electronic piano music\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was KQED reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi. Thanks to Beth Caissie for asking this week’s question. Have you voted in our February public voting round yet? Here are the questions we’re considering…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 1:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I visit the Great Mall in Milpitas, I see some signs/plaques within the mall commemorating the Ford Motor Company plant that used to be on that same site. What’s the story behind this former plant?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is at the bottom of the bay and is there any treasure down there?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Anonymous voice 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How are canned/jarred artichoke hearts made? What happens to all the outside leaves? Just how many artichokes are grown in California?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Head to BayCurious.org and cast your vote. You don’t need to sign up or login or anything — just click! It’s so easy. And while you’re there check out the Bay Curious archive for any interesting episodes you may have missed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Allen-Price: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Curious\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale, and me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Olivia\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">-Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED Family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s primary is just around the corner, on March 5, 2024. This year, there’s a statewide Proposition on your primary ballot, but don’t worry we’ve got you covered. Prop. 1 asks voters two big questions: Should mental health funding be used for housing? And should the state borrow money to build more housing and treatment facilities? There’s tons of interesting stuff to dig into on this one.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> California. Primary day is just around the corner on March 5th, and this year Californians have a lot to consider. We’ve got the presidential primary. Of course, there’s a contentious Senate race and lots happening on the local level. And then we’ve got proposition one all about funding for mental health care and housing for the state’s most vulnerable residents. Here’s how prop one will read on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Authorizes $6.38 billion in bonds to build mental health treatment facilities for those with mental health and substance use challenges. It provides housing for the homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriouspodcastinfo]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now, there are two big questions being asked in this prop should mental health funding be used for housing? And should the state borrow money to build more housing and treatment facilities? There is lots of interesting stuff to discuss here. We’ll dig in just ahead on be curious. I’m Olivia Allen Price. It is always a pleasure when prop voting time rolls around, because it means I get to talk to KQED politics correspondent guy Maserati. Hey, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Hey, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> It’s been a minute, but here we are in a big election year. One of the first decisions that California voters are going to make is which way to go on prop one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Proposition one is actually two pretty big ideas that are rolled up into one proposition. So it’s a bond measure. It’s also a reallocation of existing funds. So this was placed on the ballot by the state legislature because they need to go to the voters to get approval if they want to issue a bond. They also need to go to the voters to make a change to a ballot measure that voters previously approved back in 2004. So here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> We’ll go step by step through all the moving parts of this one. But first, guy, can you walk us through the problems that proposition one is aiming to solve?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah. The big idea behind the proposition is focusing state dollars on people who are experiencing homelessness and who have severe behavioral health issues. So we know Californians who are experiencing homelessness. It’s not a monolith. You have people who maybe, you know, fell behind on rent, maybe people who are just looking for an affordable place to live. Prop one is not focused on those folks. But, there are a lot of people who are experiencing homelessness in California who have added challenges on top of that. UCSF did their massive study of the state’s homeless population. They found 27% of people living without shelter have been hospitalized for a mental health issue. They also found 65% of those people who are living without shelter have reported heavy substance abuse. These are the kinds of people who are prop one is aimed at helping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the idea is that of all the people in the state who are facing mental health challenges, these Californians, the ones who are living on the streets or at risk of living on the streets, are the ones who need to be prioritized. And so that’s where you get to kind of the political piece of all of this, which is that homelessness is a top priority for voters, especially kind of the visible suffering of people that you see on the streets. That’s become such a huge political issue, and it’s become a big issue for the man who is backing prop one. Governor Gavin Newsom, this is part of his kind of big swing to try to fix this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Okay. And broadly, what are we considering in proposition one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So voters are being asked if the state should borrow money to build treatment facilities, build supportive housing, and if it should also change how existing mental health money gets spent, mainly by using more of that mental health money to build housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Let’s dig into the details a bit more now. Like we said a minute ago, this prop has sort of two arms. And I want to start with that first arm the bond. Now a quick bond refresher. A bond is essentially a loan the government takes out to fund certain projects. In this case, it’s a loan the state will pay back with interest over the next 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. So prop one would allow the state to borrow money by issuing $6.38 billion in bonds. Most of that money, about $4.4 billion, is going to go towards building treatment facilities. Now, this is for, like we mentioned, the thousands of Californians who have mental health needs, who have substance abuse issues, who are at risk or are actually living on the street. So that could be kind of a short term crisis care facility or longer term, you know, residential facilities, rehab communities and even, you know, some outpatient services. So that’s about 4.4 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the rest of the measure, roughly 2 billion, that’s going to go towards building affordable apartments that come with kind of onsite behavioral health services. Of that 2 billion. Now we’re breaking this down further. Of that 2 billion. About 1 billion would be specifically for veterans who have behavioral health challenges. So again, we’re talking about helping people who are most visibly suffering, people who are having, you know, psychotic episodes on the street, people who are living in tents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So what is all this investment actually going to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Supporters of prop one say by spending this bond money, they’re going to be able to create 4350 housing units, another 6800 treatment slots. Obviously, this is all a drop in the bucket for the overall homeless population in California, which is estimated to be more than 180,000 people. But again, the idea of prop one is a focus less focus on a subgroup of people who are experiencing homelessness. Newsom says prop one is the solution to the decades of unintended consequences that kicked off when California closed its state mental hospitals, but didn’t create alternative places for people to live and get care. Here’s Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> The reforms that took place in the late 50s, in the 60s and the 70s, that bipartisan endeavor around deinstitutionalization. We had a peak 37,000, beds in the state of California in the 60s, 37,000 beds. Today, it’s about 5500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> We actually do have a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here\">Bay Curious episode about the closing of state mental hospitals and its impact on homelessness\u003c/a>. We’ll put a link in the show notes and transcript for this episode if you want to check that out. Guy, is there more detail on how this money will be allocated, like specific projects or even how much would go to, say, Alameda County versus Los Angeles County or anything like that? Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That all hasn’t been laid out yet. I will say Newsom’s chief of staff, toxic KQED last summer about this prop. She said the administration, even though this had just started to move towards the ballot, they’re already looking at locations to build or refurbish, potential places with this bond money. I think really acknowledging that the process of building anything in California just takes a really long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:50] Another discussion for another time. I think it’s always worth remembering that bond money isn’t free if voters approve it. How will this bond impact Californians over time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. So California would have to repay the bonds back over 30 years out of the state’s general fund. That’s where all our tax money ends up. And that works out to about $310 million a year, which because we’re talking about a really massive state budget, it’s actually only about one half of 1% of the general fund. Now, the state would have to pay interest on top of all of that. So over the course of three decades, we’d pay about $9 billion, not adjusted for inflation, to pay back what is a $6.38 billion bond on the ballot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Okay, now on to the second arm of proposition one. So this measure would change how money collected for mental health services under Prop 63, which passed in 2004, is distributed. Okay. Start by taking us back 20 years to when voters approved the Mental Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this was really wild for me. Going back and looking at the coverage of that campaign back in 2004, because the issues that the supporters of Prop 63 were trying to address are so similar to what supporters of prop one are talking about right now. It’s basically a feeling that since those state hospitals closed, California really stopped providing the necessary care for people who have these severe mental health challenges. And the result has been those same people end up on the streets, in tents in our county jails. So what the Mental Health Services Act did back in 2004 was create this 1% tax on income over $1 million. It’s since been kind of colloquially known as the millionaires tax. And that created this new bucket of money that the state could use for mental health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So voters passed the Mental Health Services Act, which generates between two and a half and $3 billion per year. And that money now funds about a third of mental health services budgets for counties around the state. What counties especially like about this money is they have a lot of say in how it gets used. There aren’t a lot of strings attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Darrell Steinberg, who is currently the mayor of Sacramento back then in 2004, he was in the legislature and actually helped write the original Mental Health Services Act. He says the measure has been successful. It’s paid for a lot of services all across the state, from counseling to drop in centers to early intervention, having people come in to schools and classrooms and help teachers identify kids who might have mental health challenges. But he says the reason that all these years later, he’s now one of the leading supporters of changing it is because there hasn’t been enough focus on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Darrell Steinberg:\u003c/strong> I think the counties have actually spent the money well, but what they haven’t done is spent it in a way that was focused on the most critical issues affecting our state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So the trade off that supporters of prop one are pitching to voters is basically, let’s give up the flexibility in how this money is spent in exchange for adding greater focus, specifically focus on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Tell me more about how they would limit flexibility that the counties have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So under prop one, if it passes, counties would be required to spend 30% of that millionaire tax money they get from the state, specifically on housing. So that could mean providing rental subsidies, building new housing, converting things like motels into housing with supportive services. So this would leave counties then with less money to spend on some of the other programs and services they’ve been providing in the mental health space. So they need to find the money elsewhere. Or in the case a lot of opponents are concerned about, they would need to scale back or cut some of these programs. Paul Simmons is one of the leaders of the No on prop one campaign. He recently led Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance California, which provides peer support for people with depression bipolar disorder. He says service providers in similar positions are really worried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paul Simmons:\u003c/strong> Adult respite centers and wellness centers are very, very much at risk. All peer support programs are just scared to death right now that they’re going to lose any funding they got from from the MSA funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And you also have county governments who are really concerned about prop one, because right now they’re the ones that are getting this millionaires tax money. They are concerned that more of this money would go to the state. The state wants more say on how the millionaires tax money is spent. So you have many county supervisors who have come out against prop one. They’re concerned that if it passes, they’re going to have to cancel contracts with community based organizations or even perhaps reduce county staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, 95% of that million in our tax money goes to counties. What would that look like under prop one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Under prop one, it would be more like 90% with the state using its cut for things like increasing just the number of mental health care workers. And one other change I should note here is that counties under prop one would be able to spend some of this money on housing for folks who just have drug and alcohol addiction challenges, you know, substance abuse issues. They may not have a dual diagnosis, mental health issue. And right now, all the Mental Health Services Act funding under Prop 63, the millionaires tax, all of that has to be used for people with mental health conditions. This would actually change the name of the entire thing to the Behavioral Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I see, so by calling it the behavioral rather than the Mental Health Services Act, it really broadens out the group of people who could be served by the money guy. Would this increase taxes for anybody?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> No. And this is actually what makes this kind of controversial. It doesn’t increase the millionaires tax that funds the current Mental Health Services Act. So opponents of prop one say you have the same pot of money. You’re just stretching it in all these new directions by trying to focus on housing. Now, supporters like Newsom will say, that’s not the whole picture. There are all these other initiatives happening, you know, like Cal Aim, which try to get, for example, health plans to pay for some of these mental health services that prop 63, the Mental Health Services Act, has been doing for the last two. Years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> What else do opponents have to say about this one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So I think just like we broke down the measure into a couple parts, it might be helpful to break down where opponents are coming from on this pretty, pretty complex measure. So let’s start with the bonds. You have the state borrowing a lot of money to build these treatment facilities, supportive apartments. So you have conservatives, anti-tax groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They oppose taking on that debt. And then there’s other conservatives who kind of jump on and say, we also don’t agree with the Housing First policy here, which is when someone with, say, a substance abuse problem is given housing before going through treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s another piece of this, which is about what kind of housing can be built with this bond money, because prop one actually allows the money to be spent on locked facilities. These are, you know, places where people might get placed as a result of a conservatorship, where treatment is not voluntary. And this is pretty controversial. You get opposition not from conservatives on this, but you get opposition from groups like Disability Rights California, for example, who say these kind of lock facilities violate civil liberties and don’t have proven outcomes. Now, supporters of prop one say this is not going to be a huge piece of all the new facilities that get built, but that’s really an open question going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And what about the changes to how the existing prop 63 millionaires tax money is spent? Who is opposed to that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that piece of prop one is opposed by some service providers, folks like Paul Simmons, who say if you’re focusing on helping people who are the most visible have the most acute needs, that’s a poor investment. If you’re taking that money from programs that try to provide help with mental health, substance abuse, when people are in school or when they’re in counseling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paul Simmons:\u003c/strong> But really, what they’re doing, from my perspective, is to take the money from the early intervention, take it from the upstream part and throw it all into downstream. You know, where people are having more trouble and in fact, forcing more people downstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And so folks like Simmons are worried that if California puts less funding toward preventative upstream programs that support people you know, before their problems are most severe, we’re actually going to worsen some of the state’s problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And who is in support of proposition one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the biggest name in support is Governor Gavin Newsom. You know, for all the attention he’s gotten on political stunts, campaigning across the country, debating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the biggest policy focus he’s had in Sacramento has been at this intersection of behavioral health and homelessness. So just in the last few years, the governor signed bills to create care courts. So this kind of compels treatment, housing for people with severe mental illness. He also signed bills making it easier to place people in a conservative ship. Prop one is the latest step in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> This is, I think, the last big piece. We’ve got we’ve just we’ve radically changed the way we’re doing business. We created more flexibility, more tools, more accountability, more resources. Now we just we need more beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And I think what’s notable about prop one is just the size of the coalition supporting it. So both these ideas, the bond measure and then these changes to mental health spending. They both passed with huge majorities in the legislature last year. Support from Democrats, support from Republicans. Now, you might say like, oh, when the governor comes out and says, this is my top priority, everyone’s going to get in line. But I also think it’s a fact that the broken status quo, we see people just visibly suffering on the street. That touches a lot of different parts of society. So you have, you know, leaders of California hospitals supporting this. They see many of these residents end up in their emergency rooms. You have groups representing firefighters, law enforcement behind this. They often get called to respond when someone is having a mental health episode. And then you have what might be the biggest group of backers, which are mayors. You know, they feel directly, you know, accountable to voters for what residents see on the street. And it’s why you have mayors like London Breed in San Francisco so vocally in support of prop one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>London Breed:\u003c/strong> I was just out in the Tenderloin and San Francisco, and it is clear that we need people to get the support that they need, especially those suffering from mental health and substance use disorder. Let’s get into campaign spending. What does it look like on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Prop spending is very lopsided for this prop. You have supporters having raised more than $11 million to help push this measure through. Opponents, on the other hand, just about $1,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow. So really kind of David and Goliath on the on spending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> On the spending front for sure. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, KQED political correspondent Guy Maserati, always a pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> In a nutshell, a vote yes on proposition one means you’d like to see funds from an existing tax on millionaires used not just for mental health care, but also people facing drug or alcohol challenges. You’d also like those funds to be used for housing people needing mental health or substance abuse care. Finally, you’d like California to borrow $6.4 billion to pay for more mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities and housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote no on proposition one means you’d like to keep the Mental Health Services Act in its current form, and or you do not want California to issue that $6.4 billion bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All right. We really hope that helped you make sense of what you’ll be voting on. Again, Election Day is March 5th, but ballots should be in your mailbox soon if they haven’t arrived yet. If you found this episode helpful, do us a favor and tell your friends all about it or share it out on your social media accounts. Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re already gearing up for our full sized Prop Fest series during the upcoming general election. If you’ve got questions about a prop, another race, or any other voting issue in California, head over to Bay curious.org and use the form at the top of the page to send that question our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay curious is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Bill and me Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chen, Katie Springer, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanford, Hollie Kernan and the whole KQED family. I’m Olivia Ellen Price. Best of luck in your decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[baycuriousquestion]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s primary is just around the corner, on March 5, 2024. This year, there’s a statewide Proposition on your primary ballot, but don’t worry we’ve got you covered. Prop. 1 asks voters two big questions: Should mental health funding be used for housing? And should the state borrow money to build more housing and treatment facilities? There’s tons of interesting stuff to dig into on this one.\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> California. Primary day is just around the corner on March 5th, and this year Californians have a lot to consider. We’ve got the presidential primary. Of course, there’s a contentious Senate race and lots happening on the local level. And then we’ve got proposition one all about funding for mental health care and housing for the state’s most vulnerable residents. Here’s how prop one will read on your ballot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Voice Over:\u003c/strong> Authorizes $6.38 billion in bonds to build mental health treatment facilities for those with mental health and substance use challenges. It provides housing for the homeless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003caside class=\"alignleft utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__bayCuriousPodcastShortcode__bayCurious\">\u003cimg src=https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/bayCuriousLogo.png alt=\"Bay Curious Podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" />\n \u003ca href=\"/news/series/baycurious\">Bay Curious\u003c/a> is a podcast that answers your questions about the Bay Area.\n Subscribe on \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Apple Podcasts\u003c/a>,\n \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR One\u003c/a> or your favorite podcast platform.\u003c/aside>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Now, there are two big questions being asked in this prop should mental health funding be used for housing? And should the state borrow money to build more housing and treatment facilities? There is lots of interesting stuff to discuss here. We’ll dig in just ahead on be curious. I’m Olivia Allen Price. It is always a pleasure when prop voting time rolls around, because it means I get to talk to KQED politics correspondent guy Maserati. Hey, Guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Hey, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> It’s been a minute, but here we are in a big election year. One of the first decisions that California voters are going to make is which way to go on prop one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That’s right. Proposition one is actually two pretty big ideas that are rolled up into one proposition. So it’s a bond measure. It’s also a reallocation of existing funds. So this was placed on the ballot by the state legislature because they need to go to the voters to get approval if they want to issue a bond. They also need to go to the voters to make a change to a ballot measure that voters previously approved back in 2004. So here we are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> We’ll go step by step through all the moving parts of this one. But first, guy, can you walk us through the problems that proposition one is aiming to solve?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah. The big idea behind the proposition is focusing state dollars on people who are experiencing homelessness and who have severe behavioral health issues. So we know Californians who are experiencing homelessness. It’s not a monolith. You have people who maybe, you know, fell behind on rent, maybe people who are just looking for an affordable place to live. Prop one is not focused on those folks. But, there are a lot of people who are experiencing homelessness in California who have added challenges on top of that. UCSF did their massive study of the state’s homeless population. They found 27% of people living without shelter have been hospitalized for a mental health issue. They also found 65% of those people who are living without shelter have reported heavy substance abuse. These are the kinds of people who are prop one is aimed at helping.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the idea is that of all the people in the state who are facing mental health challenges, these Californians, the ones who are living on the streets or at risk of living on the streets, are the ones who need to be prioritized. And so that’s where you get to kind of the political piece of all of this, which is that homelessness is a top priority for voters, especially kind of the visible suffering of people that you see on the streets. That’s become such a huge political issue, and it’s become a big issue for the man who is backing prop one. Governor Gavin Newsom, this is part of his kind of big swing to try to fix this issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Okay. And broadly, what are we considering in proposition one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So voters are being asked if the state should borrow money to build treatment facilities, build supportive housing, and if it should also change how existing mental health money gets spent, mainly by using more of that mental health money to build housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Let’s dig into the details a bit more now. Like we said a minute ago, this prop has sort of two arms. And I want to start with that first arm the bond. Now a quick bond refresher. A bond is essentially a loan the government takes out to fund certain projects. In this case, it’s a loan the state will pay back with interest over the next 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. So prop one would allow the state to borrow money by issuing $6.38 billion in bonds. Most of that money, about $4.4 billion, is going to go towards building treatment facilities. Now, this is for, like we mentioned, the thousands of Californians who have mental health needs, who have substance abuse issues, who are at risk or are actually living on the street. So that could be kind of a short term crisis care facility or longer term, you know, residential facilities, rehab communities and even, you know, some outpatient services. So that’s about 4.4 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the rest of the measure, roughly 2 billion, that’s going to go towards building affordable apartments that come with kind of onsite behavioral health services. Of that 2 billion. Now we’re breaking this down further. Of that 2 billion. About 1 billion would be specifically for veterans who have behavioral health challenges. So again, we’re talking about helping people who are most visibly suffering, people who are having, you know, psychotic episodes on the street, people who are living in tents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So what is all this investment actually going to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Supporters of prop one say by spending this bond money, they’re going to be able to create 4350 housing units, another 6800 treatment slots. Obviously, this is all a drop in the bucket for the overall homeless population in California, which is estimated to be more than 180,000 people. But again, the idea of prop one is a focus less focus on a subgroup of people who are experiencing homelessness. Newsom says prop one is the solution to the decades of unintended consequences that kicked off when California closed its state mental hospitals, but didn’t create alternative places for people to live and get care. Here’s Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> The reforms that took place in the late 50s, in the 60s and the 70s, that bipartisan endeavor around deinstitutionalization. We had a peak 37,000, beds in the state of California in the 60s, 37,000 beds. Today, it’s about 5500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> We actually do have a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here\">Bay Curious episode about the closing of state mental hospitals and its impact on homelessness\u003c/a>. We’ll put a link in the show notes and transcript for this episode if you want to check that out. Guy, is there more detail on how this money will be allocated, like specific projects or even how much would go to, say, Alameda County versus Los Angeles County or anything like that? Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> That all hasn’t been laid out yet. I will say Newsom’s chief of staff, toxic KQED last summer about this prop. She said the administration, even though this had just started to move towards the ballot, they’re already looking at locations to build or refurbish, potential places with this bond money. I think really acknowledging that the process of building anything in California just takes a really long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> [00:06:50] Another discussion for another time. I think it’s always worth remembering that bond money isn’t free if voters approve it. How will this bond impact Californians over time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Right. So California would have to repay the bonds back over 30 years out of the state’s general fund. That’s where all our tax money ends up. And that works out to about $310 million a year, which because we’re talking about a really massive state budget, it’s actually only about one half of 1% of the general fund. Now, the state would have to pay interest on top of all of that. So over the course of three decades, we’d pay about $9 billion, not adjusted for inflation, to pay back what is a $6.38 billion bond on the ballot?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Okay, now on to the second arm of proposition one. So this measure would change how money collected for mental health services under Prop 63, which passed in 2004, is distributed. Okay. Start by taking us back 20 years to when voters approved the Mental Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, this was really wild for me. Going back and looking at the coverage of that campaign back in 2004, because the issues that the supporters of Prop 63 were trying to address are so similar to what supporters of prop one are talking about right now. It’s basically a feeling that since those state hospitals closed, California really stopped providing the necessary care for people who have these severe mental health challenges. And the result has been those same people end up on the streets, in tents in our county jails. So what the Mental Health Services Act did back in 2004 was create this 1% tax on income over $1 million. It’s since been kind of colloquially known as the millionaires tax. And that created this new bucket of money that the state could use for mental health services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> So voters passed the Mental Health Services Act, which generates between two and a half and $3 billion per year. And that money now funds about a third of mental health services budgets for counties around the state. What counties especially like about this money is they have a lot of say in how it gets used. There aren’t a lot of strings attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Darrell Steinberg, who is currently the mayor of Sacramento back then in 2004, he was in the legislature and actually helped write the original Mental Health Services Act. He says the measure has been successful. It’s paid for a lot of services all across the state, from counseling to drop in centers to early intervention, having people come in to schools and classrooms and help teachers identify kids who might have mental health challenges. But he says the reason that all these years later, he’s now one of the leading supporters of changing it is because there hasn’t been enough focus on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Darrell Steinberg:\u003c/strong> I think the counties have actually spent the money well, but what they haven’t done is spent it in a way that was focused on the most critical issues affecting our state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So the trade off that supporters of prop one are pitching to voters is basically, let’s give up the flexibility in how this money is spent in exchange for adding greater focus, specifically focus on housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Tell me more about how they would limit flexibility that the counties have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So under prop one, if it passes, counties would be required to spend 30% of that millionaire tax money they get from the state, specifically on housing. So that could mean providing rental subsidies, building new housing, converting things like motels into housing with supportive services. So this would leave counties then with less money to spend on some of the other programs and services they’ve been providing in the mental health space. So they need to find the money elsewhere. Or in the case a lot of opponents are concerned about, they would need to scale back or cut some of these programs. Paul Simmons is one of the leaders of the No on prop one campaign. He recently led Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance California, which provides peer support for people with depression bipolar disorder. He says service providers in similar positions are really worried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paul Simmons:\u003c/strong> Adult respite centers and wellness centers are very, very much at risk. All peer support programs are just scared to death right now that they’re going to lose any funding they got from from the MSA funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And you also have county governments who are really concerned about prop one, because right now they’re the ones that are getting this millionaires tax money. They are concerned that more of this money would go to the state. The state wants more say on how the millionaires tax money is spent. So you have many county supervisors who have come out against prop one. They’re concerned that if it passes, they’re going to have to cancel contracts with community based organizations or even perhaps reduce county staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Right now, 95% of that million in our tax money goes to counties. What would that look like under prop one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Under prop one, it would be more like 90% with the state using its cut for things like increasing just the number of mental health care workers. And one other change I should note here is that counties under prop one would be able to spend some of this money on housing for folks who just have drug and alcohol addiction challenges, you know, substance abuse issues. They may not have a dual diagnosis, mental health issue. And right now, all the Mental Health Services Act funding under Prop 63, the millionaires tax, all of that has to be used for people with mental health conditions. This would actually change the name of the entire thing to the Behavioral Health Services Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> I see, so by calling it the behavioral rather than the Mental Health Services Act, it really broadens out the group of people who could be served by the money guy. Would this increase taxes for anybody?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> No. And this is actually what makes this kind of controversial. It doesn’t increase the millionaires tax that funds the current Mental Health Services Act. So opponents of prop one say you have the same pot of money. You’re just stretching it in all these new directions by trying to focus on housing. Now, supporters like Newsom will say, that’s not the whole picture. There are all these other initiatives happening, you know, like Cal Aim, which try to get, for example, health plans to pay for some of these mental health services that prop 63, the Mental Health Services Act, has been doing for the last two. Years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> What else do opponents have to say about this one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> So I think just like we broke down the measure into a couple parts, it might be helpful to break down where opponents are coming from on this pretty, pretty complex measure. So let’s start with the bonds. You have the state borrowing a lot of money to build these treatment facilities, supportive apartments. So you have conservatives, anti-tax groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. They oppose taking on that debt. And then there’s other conservatives who kind of jump on and say, we also don’t agree with the Housing First policy here, which is when someone with, say, a substance abuse problem is given housing before going through treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s another piece of this, which is about what kind of housing can be built with this bond money, because prop one actually allows the money to be spent on locked facilities. These are, you know, places where people might get placed as a result of a conservatorship, where treatment is not voluntary. And this is pretty controversial. You get opposition not from conservatives on this, but you get opposition from groups like Disability Rights California, for example, who say these kind of lock facilities violate civil liberties and don’t have proven outcomes. Now, supporters of prop one say this is not going to be a huge piece of all the new facilities that get built, but that’s really an open question going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And what about the changes to how the existing prop 63 millionaires tax money is spent? Who is opposed to that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that piece of prop one is opposed by some service providers, folks like Paul Simmons, who say if you’re focusing on helping people who are the most visible have the most acute needs, that’s a poor investment. If you’re taking that money from programs that try to provide help with mental health, substance abuse, when people are in school or when they’re in counseling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paul Simmons:\u003c/strong> But really, what they’re doing, from my perspective, is to take the money from the early intervention, take it from the upstream part and throw it all into downstream. You know, where people are having more trouble and in fact, forcing more people downstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And so folks like Simmons are worried that if California puts less funding toward preventative upstream programs that support people you know, before their problems are most severe, we’re actually going to worsen some of the state’s problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> And who is in support of proposition one?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Yeah, the biggest name in support is Governor Gavin Newsom. You know, for all the attention he’s gotten on political stunts, campaigning across the country, debating Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the biggest policy focus he’s had in Sacramento has been at this intersection of behavioral health and homelessness. So just in the last few years, the governor signed bills to create care courts. So this kind of compels treatment, housing for people with severe mental illness. He also signed bills making it easier to place people in a conservative ship. Prop one is the latest step in that direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gavin Newsom:\u003c/strong> This is, I think, the last big piece. We’ve got we’ve just we’ve radically changed the way we’re doing business. We created more flexibility, more tools, more accountability, more resources. Now we just we need more beds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> And I think what’s notable about prop one is just the size of the coalition supporting it. So both these ideas, the bond measure and then these changes to mental health spending. They both passed with huge majorities in the legislature last year. Support from Democrats, support from Republicans. Now, you might say like, oh, when the governor comes out and says, this is my top priority, everyone’s going to get in line. But I also think it’s a fact that the broken status quo, we see people just visibly suffering on the street. That touches a lot of different parts of society. So you have, you know, leaders of California hospitals supporting this. They see many of these residents end up in their emergency rooms. You have groups representing firefighters, law enforcement behind this. They often get called to respond when someone is having a mental health episode. And then you have what might be the biggest group of backers, which are mayors. You know, they feel directly, you know, accountable to voters for what residents see on the street. And it’s why you have mayors like London Breed in San Francisco so vocally in support of prop one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>London Breed:\u003c/strong> I was just out in the Tenderloin and San Francisco, and it is clear that we need people to get the support that they need, especially those suffering from mental health and substance use disorder. Let’s get into campaign spending. What does it look like on this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Prop spending is very lopsided for this prop. You have supporters having raised more than $11 million to help push this measure through. Opponents, on the other hand, just about $1,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> Wow. So really kind of David and Goliath on the on spending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> On the spending front for sure. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> All right. Well, KQED political correspondent Guy Maserati, always a pleasure. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guy Marzorati:\u003c/strong> Thanks, Olivia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Olivia Allen-Price:\u003c/strong> In a nutshell, a vote yes on proposition one means you’d like to see funds from an existing tax on millionaires used not just for mental health care, but also people facing drug or alcohol challenges. You’d also like those funds to be used for housing people needing mental health or substance abuse care. Finally, you’d like California to borrow $6.4 billion to pay for more mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities and housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A vote no on proposition one means you’d like to keep the Mental Health Services Act in its current form, and or you do not want California to issue that $6.4 billion bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All right. We really hope that helped you make sense of what you’ll be voting on. Again, Election Day is March 5th, but ballots should be in your mailbox soon if they haven’t arrived yet. If you found this episode helpful, do us a favor and tell your friends all about it or share it out on your social media accounts. Thanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’re already gearing up for our full sized Prop Fest series during the upcoming general election. If you’ve got questions about a prop, another race, or any other voting issue in California, head over to Bay curious.org and use the form at the top of the page to send that question our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay curious is made in San Francisco at member supported KQED. Our show is produced by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Bill and me Olivia Allen Price. Additional support from Jen Chen, Katie Springer, Cesar Saldana, Maha Sanford, Hollie Kernan and the whole KQED family. I’m Olivia Ellen Price. Best of luck in your decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/div>"
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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}
},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"id": "here-and-now",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
"subscribe": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
}
},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
"imageAlt": "KQED Hyphenación",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/xtTd",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
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