Pedestrian Infrastructure

San Francisco police are trying to find a hit-and run driver who killed 39-year-old Carlos Martinez Saturday morning in the Mission District. Martinez was the seventh pedestrian to be killed by a motor vehicle this year on San Francisco's streets and the third hit-and-run fatality.

Just about any of the roughly 20,000 regular Muni riders who take the 6 or 71 lines every day can tell you their bus can come to a crawl as they make the turns at Laguna Street. Decades ago, the easternmost block of Haight Street was turned into a one-way street in the opposite direction, forcing inbound buses onto a notoriously slow and unnecessary detour, often called the "dog leg".

Amandeep Jawa (a.k.a. 'Deep) might be recognized by many San Franciscans as the man who can turn any street into a party as he glides by on his music-booming “Trikeasaurus." As an organizer of events that inject life into the street like the San Francisco Bike Party, he naturally jumped at the chance to create a beautiful social space outside his Valencia Street home with San Francisco’s first residential parklet.

There are a lot of disturbing numbers in Transportation for America's new report, "Aging in Place, Stuck Without Options." It says the Bay Area currently has the best transportation access for seniors, but points out that in the coming years a rising number of people over age 65 will live in neighborhoods where transit service is either poor or doesn't exist.

Editor’s note: Streetsblog San Francisco is thrilled to present a three-part series this week by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts from his book, “Cities for People” published by Island Press. This is part two. Donate to Streetsblog SF and you’ll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press.

According to AARP, 88 percent of seniors want to stay in their own homes as long as they can. But where are those homes? In auto-dependent suburbs. That’s where most Baby Boomers grew up, in the postwar era, and that’s where most of them have stayed – even as the largest (and longest-living) generation ever enters its golden years.

Editor's note: Streetsblog San Francisco is thrilled to launch a three-part series today by renowned Danish architect and livable streets luminary Jan Gehl. The pieces are excerpts are from his book, "Cities for People" published by Island Press. Donate to Streetsblog SF and you'll qualify to win a copy of the book, courtesy of Island Press. Visit the Island Press website to find many more great titles by the nation's leading publisher of books on environmental issues.

On December 10, 2004, Katy Liddell had just stepped off the N-Judah with a sack of cleaning supplies and was walking to her Portside apartment at Harrison and Main in Rincon Hill, when she noticed a cadre of emergency vehicles surrounding the intersection. As Liddell drew closer, she saw something that horrified her.

The SFMTA installed two new signal lights this week that the agency hopes will lead to increased safety for people walking and biking in the Broadway Tunnel and a Tenderloin intersection.