SFMTA

The city's latest proposal to improve safety and transit service on Potrero Avenue is slightly different than earlier versions of the plan. While the redesign would expand pedestrian space, some residents at a public meeting yesterday pointed out that it could do much more to make the street safer for biking and walking.

The SFMTA installed bike lanes on outer Sloat Boulevard last week, re-purposing two of the street's six traffic lanes between the Great Highway and Skyline Boulevard next to the San Francisco Zoo.

With hundreds of on-street parking spaces around San Francisco set to become available for car-share vehicles, the SFMTA plans to charge companies monthly fees for the conversion of curbside spots that are normally free. So while companies like City Car-Share, Zipcar, and Getaround  -- which offer services that make it easier for residents to go without owning personal vehicles -- will pay up to $225 per month for reserved spots, private car owners will generally continue to pay nothing for the use of unmetered spaces.

Thanks to Lisa Ratner for shooting this video on Polk last Friday.

Within a few decades, San Francisco's streets will be even more clogged with cars, more dangerous for walking and biking, and Muni will burst at the seams as more people try to get around. That's the future city officials warned about at a hearing yesterday, painting a grim picture of traffic-choked streets if nothing is done to change the status quo of paltry funding for walking, biking, and transit.

Updated 5:16 p.m. with corrections on the number of blocks.

Two blocks in the Western Addition were closed to cars and turned into a neighborhood gathering space Saturday for the city's first "Play Streets" event. The program is an effort to build on the success of Sunday Streets and provide smaller-scale car-free spaces where people can play and socialize on a more frequent basis.

A chunk of roadway at Valencia and Mission Streets would be reclaimed to create a plaza designed to make the corner more pedestrian-friendly and absorb stormwater under a project led by the SF Public Utilities Commission.

Muni shouldn't cut service to save money while school's out for summer, the SF Transit Riders Union said in a statement yesterday. SFTRU is speaking out against what they call the SFMTA's double standard of reducing transit service in "the blink of an eye" while deliberating smart parking policy changes for years.