People

Within a few decades, San Francisco's streets will be even more clogged with cars, more dangerous for walking and biking, and Muni will burst at the seams as more people try to get around. That's the future city officials warned about at a hearing yesterday, painting a grim picture of traffic-choked streets if nothing is done to change the status quo of paltry funding for walking, biking, and transit.

Updated 5:16 p.m. with corrections on the number of blocks.

Sixth Street, which has one of the highest rates of pedestrian injuries in the city, could receive a road diet after the SFMTA analyzes the impacts of removing two of its four traffic lanes to improve safety.

As if San Francisco's sidewalks weren't narrow enough, they're often cluttered with objects like newspaper racks, utility poles, street signs, and utility boxes.

I know it's tempting to gloat.

In case you haven't seen it, don't miss the keynote address from livable streets luminary and New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan at the SF Bicycle Coalition's Golden Wheel Awards last week.

Just after our look at the faltering pace of plaza expansions under San Francisco's Pavement to Parks program last week, we get another glimpse of New York City's ongoing efforts to reclaim street space for people and improve safety using low-cost, temporary measures like posts and gravel epoxy.

Leona Bridges is no longer a member of the SFMTA Board of Directors, for reasons which remain unclear. At the start of this week's board meeting, which Bridges didn't attend, chairperson Tom Nolan announced that she'd been sworn in as a member of the city's Retirement Board. Appointments to both boards are made by Mayor Ed Lee.

A package of legislation aimed at cutting through the bureaucratic red tape that encumbers the city’s progress on life-saving pedestrian safety measures was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee yesterday. The full board is expected to approve the proposals in the coming weeks.