San Francisco Neighborhoods

Last Friday, two drivers ran over and killed 44-year-old Melissa Kitson of San Lorenzo at 7th and Howard Streets, the second pedestrian fatality in San Francisco this year.

Advocates for San Francisco's low-income communities have issued a new report calling for policy changes intended to improve Muni service, increase mobility for transit-dependent San Franciscans, reduce pollution from driving, and improve the city's economy.

The Great Highway, the motorway that divides Ocean Beach from the Outer Sunset and Richmond, is set to get some bike lane and pedestrian improvements north of Lincoln Way as part of a nine-month re-paving project started this week by the Department of Public Works.

Residents are enjoying a more livable outer Bryant Street since the city implemented a road diet last month, reducing four traffic lanes to two (plus left-turn bays at some intersections) between 23rd and Cesar Chavez Streets. Neighbors joined Friends of the Urban Forest on Sunday on the block between 26th Street and Cesar Chavez to add trees and plants to two new medians -- visual signals that drivers should slow down as they enter the neighborhood from the 101 freeway.

A nice little transformation has taken place on Elgin Park, a one-block residential street next to the Central Freeway touchdown at Market Street and Octavia Boulevard.

The idea of removing the northern section of Highway 280 near Mission Bay is gaining more traction as planners look for ideal ways to usher in high-speed rail and transit-oriented development in downtown San Francisco.

Despite living in one of the city's densest residential neighborhoods with one of the lowest rates of car ownership, Tenderloin residents have endured some of San Francisco's most dangerous streets for walking since traffic engineers turned most of them into one-way, high-speed motorways in the 1960s.

Crews began work yesterday on an overhaul of Jefferson Street in Fisherman's Wharf that will expand pedestrian space, reduce the number of cars, and create a more welcoming public realm for the throngs of tourists that regularly crowd the street. Improvements on the first two blocks of Jefferson, between Jones and Hyde Streets, were fast-tracked for completion in time for America's Cup, which is set to begin on July 4. Construction was originally scheduled to begin in October, but it was pushed back to January for unspecified reasons.

Bicycling in San Francisco is getting better since the bicycle injunction was lifted in 2010, and concrete progress on projects like the critical Fell and Oak Street bikeway is very encouraging. But this week also made bicyclists in SF painfully aware that as the SF Municipal Transportation Agency gets closer to completing the projects in its Bike Plan, it will need to elevate its game to keep up with the nation's leading cities. The upcoming release of the SFMTA's Bicycle Strategy is a can't-miss opportunity to pick up the pace.