This morning we ran north on Arguello to the Presidio. When we reached California Street, it struck us that there were no pedestrian signals at that intersection, which is rife with pedestrians, on a crowded bus line, and right near a couple of schools and a huge synagogue. Thinking back, most of the intersections to Arguello don't have pedestrian flashers, with the exceptions of Fulton, Geary, and Clement. Every other intersection - including some......

-- Really? At Union Square? Where we sit and enjoy our Border's-bought cream cheese stuffed pretzel? Let's back up a bit: according to SF Crime, a 16-year-old boy was shot while kicking it in the Union Square area at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday night. "A bullet struck the teen in the ankle and he was transported to San Francisco General Hospital in stable condition" just 30 minutes after SFPD responded to yet another......

Similar to the fatal accident that happened in November, another pedestrian -- engrossed in a phone call, ignorant as to what was happening around him -- was stuck and killed by a train in San Leandro. According to the Chronicle, it seems that: The victim, a man who was not immediately identified, was struck at 12:30 p.m. by a northbound Capitol Corridor train at the Alvarado Street crossing, about 8 miles south of the......

San Francisco is America's most "walkable" city...

We caught the symphony on Thursday for a really cool program: Mostly Ives, with a Mendelssohn violin concerto squeezed in between for good measure. Those quicker than us with their opinions found the concerto rather pedestrian. But it's such a delicious yet cloying confection that even under the the jurisdiction of a particularly uninspired interpretation, is still satisfying. And the soloist, 22yo Sergey Khachatryan, did spark some fireworks in the final movement. In the program......

It was with absolutely zero shock that we read yesterday's article in the Examiner about a police sting aimed at drivers who cruise through the crosswalk when people are trying to cross the street at Taraval and 21st. The sting continues, as San Francisco police are conducting undercover pedestrian sting operations to cite drivers “blatantly violating the pedestrian right of way.” On Wednesday, officers at Taraval Street and 21st Avenue cited 45 drivers in......

We were bicycling out in Parkside today, and we stopped to admire the new traffic signals at 19th and Sloat. It's still extraordinarily dangerous, and perhaps worse. The sign telling cars to yield on green for a left turn is still up, so drivers edge out in to the intersection, begging to get creamed by traffic coming the other way on Sloat. That left-turn signal? It lasts for precisely two seconds, at the end......

Ah, beautiful Diviz. Is there no boulevard more perfect, more blissful? When we think "nice places to take an afternoon constitutional," we are drawn instantly to its divine charm. It is, simply put, an Eden. To alter it would be to play God. But SOME PEOPLE want to change all that. The out-of-touch bureaucrats in City Hall think that the stretch from Haight to Geary needs to be improved. Strange terms like "greening" and......

Five people were sent to the hospital today after two cars crashed into each other at 19th Avenue and Sloat, shutting down the Sunset District intersection. According to the Chronicle, at around 2 p.m., "one car jumped the curb and hit a pedestrian after the collision." The victim was rushed over to SFGH with "life-threatening injuries." Also, 19th Avenue needs to be wiped from the face of the earth. UPDATE: After getting hit in......

Last night -- according to fredsharples, who took these shots, found on SFist Contribute -- a pedestrian was (reportedly) hit by a MUNI bus at around 7 p.m. on 24th Street between Harrison and Treat. Do any of you know what happened? If so, do tell. We've played Frogger on that strip many times, and those cars and buses cut it damn close.......

So the Chronicle says not that many people took advantage of free public transportation today for the first Spare The Air day of the season, but the BART train we were on was certainly pretty crowded. We love Spare The Air days, where all of a sudden the kids that everyone always says they never see in San Francisco materialize out of nowhere and ride the rails all day. (Or for today, until 1 p.m.,......

Remember the Jamba Juice hepatitis A scare? And remember how we said there were gymnasts competing in a national meet in San Jose a few weeks ago? Well -- you guessed it -- it turns out the gymnasts might have been exposed to the virus. The hepatitis A carrier made smoothies for the gymnasts during the meet and in the trade shows outside. She claims she used good hygiene and food safety practices throughout (wearing......

Yet another pedestrian hit by yet another MUNI bus in the Richmond -- this time, the 1 California at 22nd Ave. Plus, Caltrain hit a car this morning too. More murder counts for the SF Crime Blog -- a man was shot to death in the Bayview, at Innes and Mendell. This is murder number 69 for the year, and you'll be unsurprised to hear that the cops have no leads. Hey, SF Crime Blog,......

Did you see (video footage) all that smoke (pictures) yesterday? A fire at 17th and Noe Street between the Mission and the Castro at around 6:30 yesterday evening displaced at least 14 people, and sent seven to the hospital for smoke inhalation. One man had to be rescued off the roof. The fire spread to the building next door too, but firefighters managed to put it out before that building was too damaged. The SFFD......

-- Will Harper has it that Chris Daly might run for mayor now that Gonzalez is out. Whoa, a real contender! Interesting. [The Snitch (SF Weekly)] -- Proposed designs for the new Transbay Terminal revealed, each one niftier than the next. Compared to what we have now, anyway. [Chron] -- Neighborhood group in the Inner Richmond might stop Starbucks from setting up shop. Amazing job, you guys. [Examiner] -- Train accidently kills a pedestrian......

Oooh, we love surveys! Interactive, easy to do, fun to click on things, and plus you get that feeling of having Let Your Voice Count. Like jury duty, only you can do it at home and they won't issue a warrant for your arrest if you don't complete it. Anyhow, we just got forwarded the SF Better Streets survey, where you get to rate your favorite and least favorite pedestrian streets in the city. Fun!......

--Turns out rescuers totally missed the car of the missing Alameda County woman and her priest friend, even though they got exact directions from 911. [Chron.] --An Oakland Tribune sports columnist apologizes for calling the A's racist. [92510; read the original column cached on Google here.] --Come to California, Barack Obama! [Calitics.] --A pedestrian was hit by an SUV at Folsom and Main. [A reader, who requested that we give you the link to WalkSF,......

Well, that was a grim Daily Californian homepage yesterday. The top six stories: pedestrian hit by car on Telegraph; Berkeley summer camp evacuated due to Tahoe fire, body found near the Berkeley Marina, beloved local activist hit by train, Cal student to be tried for killing David Halberstam, and memorials for the local murder-suicide family. On the bright side, the other article on the home page is that Cal basketball star DeVon Hardin has decided......

June is busting out all over! With lawsuits, we mean. Added to the total from a few weeks ago, we're up to $456,565.92 in Muni claims since February. Wow, that's a lot of money. Sure would've gone a long way toward hiring a few more drivers, or repairing a few more buses, or buying a few more NextMuni signs. Oh well. Some of the cases are pretty standard -- personal injury, property damage, etc etc......

Transportation issues covered at Assemblywoman Fiona Ma's First Town Hall Meeting...

A lot of weird car accidents in the news yesterday: an impatient guy trying to pass around congestion on the road killed a pedestrian on 19th Avenue in San Francisco, a drunk off-duty cop killed a pedestrian on Solano Avenue in Berkeley, and a man was killed in Sausalito by a garbage truck backing up, a truck filled with hay tipped over and jammed up I-80 this morning. The Examiner Blotter -- always a good......

We're sorry to pass along the news that a pedestrian is near death after having been hit by a car in the Nob Hill/Polk Gulch area at around 5:30 this morning. The pedestrian was crossing California Street at Hyde when an eastbound car going up the California Street hill plowed right into him. Witnesses reported that the pedestrian rolled up onto the hood, and then fell off after the car hit the brakes. The car......

Uh oh. All that work, all that lobbying and compromising, all those broken promises, all those clipboards -- and nobody showed up for the first Healthy Saturday. Yikes. We've got lots of pix up on Flickr. A biggish swath of JFK Drive was opened to pedestrians this Sunday; and maybe it was the gloomy weather, or Healthy Saturday's newness, or the fact that it's damn near impossible to find a map of the pedestrian......

We were skeptical about the plan to open the Panhandle DMV lot for public parking. But Lisa Zahner, the city's Divisadero Corridor Manager, reassured us that the Planning Department doesn't anticipate a rise in traffic levels, since the surrounding streets are already so busy. And in fact, traffic might improve, since drivers won't have to circle the block to find parking. Not only that, but the city's hope is that people will use the......

Belmont (the Utica to our Manhattan, if we may make such a daring analogy) is an on-the-go suburb, in love with its cars and asphalt, and with no time for such frivolities as parks and people and conserving water. Mayor Coralin Feierbach is one of the only Bay Area mayors to refuse to sign the Sierra Club's Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement, objecting to the pledge to "reduce sprawl, preserve open space, and create compact,......

If good web design gets you all weak in the knees, take a look at the SFCTA's new website. (The SFCTA is like the MTA's little cousin; they handle interesting transit projects rather than the big day-to-day stuff.) It's all orange and pretty and infinitely easier to use than the old version. Meeting agendas! Pedestrian safety maps! Geary committees! It's all right there. (Although friendlier URLs would be nice.) Compare these delightfully uniform navigation......

Nancy Pelosi is sticking up for her constituents, amidst all the recent news that San Francisco has the highest gas prices in the nation. She says that she's trying to make July 4th “Energy Independence Day" through a package of proposals. As a pedestrian/public transportation user, we don't personally feel a direct impact from these high prices, but we'd be fooling ourselves to think that there isn't a trickle-down impact -- on any goods......

You've got one week left to drive your car up and down Jessie Street. On May 11th, the street closes between Mint and 5th Street, to be turned into a pedestrian thoroughfare with trees and cafes and planters and niceness. This conversion is a process known as "hey, let's make that place suck less." Judging by some of the concept art, it'll look very pleasant; even the clouds in the beautiful blue sky will......

Whether you love Critical Mass or hate it, the folks on the other side of the debate must seem totally baffling, if not downright evil. Its detractors wonder, "how can anyone support an event with no organizers, no pre-determined route, no agenda, and in which everyone has a different reason for participating?" Its advocates wonder, "in a transit first city, how can anyone oppose a method of transportation that's cleaner, safer, less wasteful, and......

-Cop killer gets life in prison. -Heather Fong says the SFPD will not help the Feds do their immigration raids in the city. -San Francisco substitute teacher threatens to commit suicide while teaching class. -Gavin wants a hybrid town car to chauffer him around the city. -Person who made threat against Hastings is a student at Boalt. -Another pedestrian was killed after being hit by a train yesterday. -Arnie's secret execution room is stopped.......