Pedestrians

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.

Oakland's pedestrian fatalities are centered in neighborhoods of color, around freeways and arterials designed to quickly move cars at the cost of safety.

It's no secret that San Francisco could do a lot more to make its streets safer, but a new national report on pedestrian safety issued today highlights a glaring pattern where the bulk of preventable pedestrian crashes with motor vehicles occur: on poorly designed, high-speed "arterial" roads.

If you had to cross this road on your walk to work, wouldn’t you rather drive?

A 23-year-old sheriff's cadet accused of gross vehicular manslaughter, drunk driving and hit-and-run in the death of a 61-year-old pedestrian on Masonic Avenue and Turk Street earlier this month pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts in a San Francisco courtroom this morning.