GJEL

Thousands of people, including lots of kids, came out to the Excelsior neighborhood yesterday morning and afternoon to enjoy a bright and sunny Sunday Streets on Mission Street. This one ran from Avalon/Theresa to Geneva Streets, and marks the final Sunday Streets event of 2017.

Some two-thirds of citations for driving in transit lanes and bike lanes, failing to yield to pedestrians, and other motor vehicle violations, are issued to Transportation Network Company (TNC) cars such as Uber and Lyft--this according to a study from the police department of violations in downtown San Francisco.

It's the one time of the year "to say thanks to transit riders," said Rachel Hyden, Executive Director of the San Francisco Transit Riders (SFTR), at today's noontime Transit Week kick off event, held on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. "The transit rider contributes to SF. We lower carbon emissions, reduce congestion, and make it easier for everyone to get around."

Urban planners, at least when it comes to bikeway design, are still trying to undo the damage caused by vehicular cyclists in the 1970s and 80s, explained Bill Schultheiss, a traffic engineer who specializes in bike design and a member of the Bicycle Technical Committee and the Pedestrian Task Force of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD), with the Toole Design Group. "There was a fear that cyclists would no longer be able to ride in the streets and would be relegated to sidewalks," he added. "To this day, that has discouraged protected bike lanes in the [road engineering] guidance."

There was a bit of a dust-up late Friday on Twitter when the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition called out Caltrans over "public service" announcements that blame our most vulnerable road users for their own deaths and injuries.

Sunday evening, Reena (she asked Streetsblog to withhold her last name), 34, was returning to San Francisco after a long ride through Marin on her carbon fiber road bike. She turned onto Valencia for the last few blocks to her apartment in the Mission. She was pedaling along at a leisurely eight mph, riding in the bike lane and watching out for opening car doors on her right, when somewhere between 14th and 15th, something hit her from her left.

A business in San Francisco's Chinatown could receive up to $10,000 from the city to help bring back customers ostensibly lost due to construction disruption from SFMTA's subway project, according to a release from Mayor Lee's office about a new "Central Subway Mitigation" program. Along the same tack, the mayor is asking SFMTA, Public Works, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development to develop a Citywide Construction Mitigation Program.

"Why wait five or six years before doing anything with the space?" was the question Brad Leibin, an‎ architect at David Baker Architects, was asked to help solve about an affordable housing project planned for West Oakland's San Pablo Avenue at 34th Street. "So we started to make a difference on that streets-cape immediately ... that project got me really interested in interim uses."

Oakland has completed safety upgrades to the crosswalk at 23rd and Harrison.