Sunset

On deadly Sunset Boulevard, the SFMTA's plans for a new pedestrian-activated stop light at Yorba Street have been advanced by a year. The signal, originally scheduled to go in by the end of 2016, is now set to be activated by the end of 2015, according to SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

Half of San Francisco's traffic signals were supposed to have transit priority installed by this spring, according to the ambitious schedule set out by managers of the Muni Transit Effectiveness Project two years ago. This may not come as much of a surprise, but the SFMTA isn't quite meeting its target.

The vision for a block-long pedestrian plaza on Irving Street in the Inner Sunset is taking the next step, with the launch of a community-based study. Dubbed "Irving Commons," the plaza idea was warmly received by neighbors when it was presented two years ago at Inner Sunset Sundays, a street party organized four times per year on the block of Irving between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

Most merchants on central Irving Street in the Sunset may have come around to the idea of turning 12 parking spaces into sidewalk extensions with greenery and stylized seating fixtures.

Six-lane Sunset Boulevard is one of the city's most dangerous streets to cross, but that won't change under plans being developed by the SF Public Utilities Commission.

Once again, a merchant group is contesting a proposal that would improve walking and public space on a San Francisco street. At a community meeting on plans to add greening and sidewalk corner extensions on central Irving Street last week, merchants balked at the idea of removing 10 to 12 parking spaces to extend eight sidewalk corners and create spaces where people can rest.

Most of the space on the busy commercial stretch of central Irving Street in the Sunset serves as a clogged parking lot, with rampant double parking and drivers circling the easternmost block to work around 19th Avenue's left-turn bans. But while the car traffic and angled parking spots that eat up public space may not disappear any time soon, the Department of Public Works held a recent public meeting to field input on how to make the street more livable with new trees, re-paving, a median with greenery, and a few corner bulb-outs.

Katy Tang was sworn in Wednesday as the supervisor for District 4, comprised of the outer and central Sunset. Tang, who grew up in the district, was appointed this week by Mayor Ed Lee to replace Carmen Chu, who Lee recently picked to serve as the city's assessor-recorder. Chu spent five years on the Board of Supervisors, during which Tang served as her legislative aide.

Cars littered on San Francisco's sidewalks are a painfully common sight. The problem is perhaps most prevalent in outer neighborhoods like the Sunset and Bayview, where, for decades, homeowners with residential garages have paved over their front yards. The pedestrian environment on these streets is left degraded, with swaths of dead space where families and people with disabilities are often forced to walk around an obstacle course of cars and driveway ramps.