We thought it a little odd that the day after the tragic accident at Octavia and Oak that took the life of a UCSF professor Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi made sure to praise Octavia Street as "a fabulous Boulevard." Mirkarimi may have been trying to head off the inevitable criticism that would follow such an accident, given the Board's two-decade-old push to ban freeway construction north of Market Street, which led to the Boulevard plan for Octavia and the creation of what is, arguably, a very high-speed zone of city streets with cars exiting the freeway and rapidly making their way to the western ends of town.

Now an editorial a letter to the editor in the Examiner brings up the very old debate about freeways vs. city street traversing, and the decisions made by the Board of Supervisors and voters not to reconstruct the Central or Embarcadero Freeways. SF Citizen also made quick business of stirring the pot, with two posts last week, referring to the Boulevard as a "P.O.S." (piece of shit), and asking whether it can really be called a "livable street."

What say you, dear SFist? How has the last twenty years without a Central or Embarcadero Freeway been for you? We know that crossing the street at Fell/Oak and Octavia can be a bit of a taking-your-life-in-your-hands situation, but what about as drivers? And how many accidents will it take before the thing gets somehow reconfigured?