Pedestrians

Many Foster City residents were shocked last month when their City Council responded to the injury of a 17-year-old girl by closing off the crosswalk at Edgewater Boulevard at Port Royal Avenue, where she was struck by a driver. Hundreds of residents petitioned the council to take other steps instead of installing "No Ped Crossing" signs and physical barriers. The council reversed its crosswalk closure decision last week, opting instead to install pedestrian-activated flashing lights.

ABC 7's "I-Team," lead by reporter Dan Noyes, had a major opportunity to give viewers an accurate picture of "what's causing pedestrian deaths," as the headline of its latest segment suggests. But Noyes didn't let the facts get in the way of producing a pedestrian-shaming piece, at the end of which he asked viewers to tweet about self-endangering pedestrians with the hashtag #DidntLook.

SFPD officials, transportation department heads, and three supervisors stood outside City Hall this morning alongside safe streets advocates and people whose lives have been affected by traffic violence. The press conference served as a call to action and a memorial for victims of traffic violence in the past year, with participants holding Valentines featuring names of the deceased.

SFPD has arrested 27-year-old Mageb Hussain of Emeryville for hitting and killing an unidentified pedestrian on Van Ness at Pacific Avenue at about 1 a.m. last night. Hussain was reportedly driving a rental car and attempted to walk away from the scene of the crash.

Willie Brown's successors don't look so bad when reading the former mayor's windshield perspective drivel in his latest Chronicle column.

The SFPD has arrested, cited, and released a driver for killing 78-year-old Isaak Berenzon as he crossed Sunset Boulevard at Yorba Street in the Outer Sunset Tuesday at about 11 a.m. This is the third known instance of the SFPD arresting a driver who killed a pedestrian, and wasn't drunk or fleeing the scene, since New Year's Eve. Previously, such drivers typically faced no legal penalties.

When KQED asked Jason Henderson in a recent interview whether distracted pedestrians are contributing to a rise in traffic injuries and fatalities, he countered the nonsense. "Well, let's think of it this way," said Henderson, the author of Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco. "A pedestrian talking on the phone that bumps into another pedestrian is probably not going to result in a fatality."

The League of Pissed-Off Voters is, well, pissed off about Mayor Ed Lee's lighthearted tone in his "Be Nice, Look Twice" campaign -- his answer to the maiming and killing of San Franciscans by reckless drivers.

[Editor's note: Streetsblog will not be publishing Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.]