Pedestrians

It's a wonder that anyone drives a car on Powell Street in Union Square. Yet along the busiest pedestrian thoroughfare this side of the United States, you'll typically see the perplexing scene of drivers, sitting in a line heading down the hill, all seemingly going nowhere in particular and certainly not very quickly. These private autos block bustling crosswalks, jam up Muni's world-famous cable cars and its busiest bus line, and make an overall shameful display out of what many see as San Francisco's gateway.

A man was hit and killed by a Muni bus driver on Geary Boulevard at Lyon Street on Monday at 1:15 a.m., according to media reports. Both crosswalks across Geary are closed at that intersection, just east of the Masonic tunnel, leaving a roughly 1,000-foot gap between crosswalks at Presidio Avenue and at Baker Street.

SF police have arrested 25-year-old Lorysha Gage for leaving two-year-old Mi'yana Gregory in the downtown crosswalk where she was run over and killed last Friday night. Even as police seek the driver who struck Gregory and fled the scene, Gage is set to be arraigned tomorrow on charges of "felony child endangerment, with an enhancement allegation for causing death."

Two lives were lost to reckless drivers in SF this weekend: Two-year-old Mi'yana Gregory and 29-year-old Zachary Watson, whose family and friends removed life support after three weeks in the hospital.

Updated 8:07 p.m. The SFPD issued this statement:

Three-year-old Nikita May remains in recovery at SF General Hospital, after being hit on his bike by a pickup truck driver at Fulton Street and 43rd Avenue on April 10. Friends, family, and community members have set up a fundraiser to help the family see him return to health.

It's happened again: street space was re-allocated from cars to people, and the unbearable traffic jams opponents warned of have failed to materialize. In fact, some of them even like the result now.

It's hard to imagine a more egregiously clear-cut case where a driver deserves a harsh prison term than when drunk driver Kieran Brewer ran over and killed a minor inside a crosswalk. Surely, unlike other cases where sober drivers killed pedestrians and faced few consequences, these circumstances would spur the judicial system into action.

A car driver struck and killed a man who was crossing Van Ness at Golden Gate Avenue at about 11 p.m. last night. According to the SFPD, "Early reports indicate that the pedestrian was not in the crosswalk," but the crash is still under investigation. Police didn't say how fast the driver was going, or how close to the crosswalk the victim may have been.