GJEL

No sidewalk is safe.

Opportunities to expand sidewalks and make streets safer go to waste too often when the pavement is torn up in SF. A year ago, the city announced efforts to improve coordination between agencies so that when a street undergoes repairs, safety measures are added, saving time and money in addition to saving lives.

Page Street is a pretty great bicycle route to get downtown from the western neighborhoods -- until you reach the two blocks that are typically backed up with cars waiting to turn on to Octavia Boulevard and the Central Freeway. Bike commuters are forced to squeeze by stopped cars, either to the left (in the mostly empty oncoming traffic lane) or the right (the door zone tunnel).

Another brilliant driver got his car stuck in the Sunset Tunnel Saturday night at about 8 p.m., bringing Muni's busiest line to a dead stop. A train full of N-Judah riders had to walk along the tracks out of the eastern portal. One of them was Streetsblog reader Sean Rea, who captured the walk in a video posted on YouTube (see below).

The SFPD says it has arrested one of the bike thieves who assaulted six people biking on the Panhandle in October and stole their bikes. Lieutenant Jason Sawyer of SFPD Park Station's Investigations Unit said police "have no doubt" that the juvenile male was one of the assailants who threw bottles at bike commuters and jammed sticks into their spokes late at night.

The nascent prospect of extending the Central Subway beyond Chinatown gained steam this week with the release of a preliminary city study [PDF] that lays out some conceptual proposals to bring the subway further into the city's northern neighborhoods.

Two years after Muni launched all-door boarding, the agency continues to report [PDF] quicker boardings and lower rates of fare evasion.

Updated 11:06 p.m. with comments from BART Board-elect Nick Josefowitz.

Muni's notoriously sluggish 30-Stockton line is finally set to get some upgrades that will give buses higher priority on streets through the dense neighborhoods of Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, and near Fisherman's Wharf.