Pedestrians

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On most recent mornings, 59-year-old William Cox walked several blocks from his Mission District apartment to the bustling Peet's store on Market Street in the Castro for his daily dose of coffee, crossword puzzles and conversation. He had given up his Jeep Cherokee shortly after moving to San Francisco from San Rafael two-and-half years ago and got around mostly on foot and transit. On Tuesday morning, he paid a visit to his best friend, David Douma, who lives across the street from Peet's.

New designs have been drawn up for eastern Cesar Chavez Street and will be presented to the community next week, nearly two months after a contentious meeting in which attendees were told, just days before the striping of new bike lanes, that plans for a road diet were being scrapped by the Mayor's Office and Port of San Francisco because of concerns from industrial businesses about reducing road capacity for trucks hauling goods.

A 9-year-old boy from suburban Philadelphia who was struck and severely injured by a hit-and-run drunk driver in SoMa last week, after watching his hometown team beat the Giants, has been upgraded from critical to serious condition, and his family says he faces a long recovery.

“Whose Streets? OUR Streets!” yell rowdy demonstrators when they surge off the sidewalk and into thoroughfares. True enough, the streets are our public commons, what’s left of it (along with libraries and our diminishing public schools), but most of the time these public avenues are dedicated to the movement of vehicles, mostly privately owned autos. Other uses are frowned upon, discouraged by laws and regulations and what has become our “customary expectations.” Ask any driver who is impeded by anything other than a “normal” traffic jam and they’ll be quick to denounce the inappropriate use or blockage of the street.

We now know the economic toll and other important statistics about pedestrian injuries in San Francisco thanks to the exhaustive research of a San Francisco General Hospital trauma surgeon and her team. Dr. Rochelle Dicker, who is featured in a profile today on UCSF's website, set out to conduct an analysis of the direct medical costs resulting from "auto-versus-pedestrian" collisions in San Francisco between 2003 and 2008.

SFMTA crews have installed new continental crosswalks at the intersection of Harrison and Main streets, seven years after pedestrian advocates in Rincon Hill began lobbying the agency for changes following the death of retired SF State journalism professor Beverly Kees. In addition, the pedestrian countdown signals have been timed to give pedestrians a four-second head start.

San Francisco cut the ribbon on an innovative public space "in the heart of downtown" today that will greatly improve the pedestrian realm in the Union Square shopping district. Hundreds of people spilled into the two-block Powell Street Promenade on Powell between Ellis and Geary for the official grand opening.

Public transit programs in California could take a $468 million annual hit under the proposed transportation bill unveiled last week by Rep. John Mica (R-FL). The Mica plan would also potentially result in the loss of 17,565 annual jobs, according to an analysis [pdf] by Transportation for America. Overall, T4A predicts the scaled-down bill would result in a 37 percent reduction in federal investments in public transportation when compared to current levels.