Peninsula Moves!

By Will Reisman, @WillReisman

Union Street Festival Kicks Off Summer Season: Once June arrives in the Bay Area, there seems to be a different street festival or celebration every weekend. The Union Street Festival, being staged this weekend, is usually the first of these gatherings, which means that summer has pretty much officially arrived. The two-day event last from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., taking place on a seven-block stretch of Union Street in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood. Now in its 39^th year, the festival will feature a fashion show highlighting local merchants, craft beer tents, food stands and information booths manned by community organizations. The festival is accessible by several Muni bus lines. Passengers travelling from the Peninsula can take Caltrain to the San Francisco station and transfer to Muni’s 30 and 45 lines, which will take them directly to the event.

Catch the Sunset Weekend Celebration One Last Time Before Event Moves: The Sunset Celebration Weekend, one of the premier annual festivals in the Peninsula, will host one last jamboree at its iconic headquarters in Menlo Park this Saturday and Sunday. Hosted by Sunset Magazine, which is moving at the end of the year to a new location, the festival boasts cooking exhibits from some of the Bay Area’s top chefs, tutorials on gardening and landscaping, plenty of tasty drink concoctions and other activities. There will be a free shuttle service taking attendees from the Menlo Park Caltrain Station to the festival site on Willow Road. Event-goers who show their Caltrain ticket will get $1 off the admission fee to the event.

Bay Area Bike Share to Expand, Remain in the Peninsula: By 2017, the Bay Area’s bike-sharing program will be the second-largest in the country, thanks to the decision made last week by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to expand the program. Currently numbering 700 bikes in locations in San Francisco, the Peninsula and San Jose, the bike-sharing network will expand to three new cities in the East Bay, growing to 7,000 bikes overall in the process. It was unclear originally if the three locations in the Peninsula—Redwood City, Palo Alto and Mountain View—would remain part of the program, but as part of the $4.5 million plan approved by the MTC, those cities now appear to be part of the expansion plans.