I love 99% Invisible, but in my opinion this piece is far too generous to the actual SFMTA, who occasionally respond to the SFMTrA's work reasonably (as covered in the article), but who usually just strip it wholesale, to the detriment of the safety of thousands of pedestrians and cyclists. For example, these markers on Folsom St helped improve safety considerably and were constructed in an incredibly professional way, but are now gone completely [1].
The group itself puts it best here [2]:
> "The SFMTA is glacially slow to install pedestrian and bicyclist safety infrastructure, yet was able to remove our simple safety improvements within a week," the group said in a statement sent to SFist. "We call on SFMTA to immediately replace these pedestrian safety improvements with protection at or above the level installed by SFMTrA."
Everyone who walks or bikes in SF can atest to the truth of this statement firsthand. Progress _is_ being made, but it's frustratingly slow.
[1] http://www.sfmtra.org/blog/2016/10/26/the-sfmta-removed-safe...
[2] http://sfist.com/2016/10/19/sfmta_says_street_safety_improve...
The group itself puts it best here [2]:
> "The SFMTA is glacially slow to install pedestrian and bicyclist safety infrastructure, yet was able to remove our simple safety improvements within a week," the group said in a statement sent to SFist. "We call on SFMTA to immediately replace these pedestrian safety improvements with protection at or above the level installed by SFMTrA."
Everyone who walks or bikes in SF can atest to the truth of this statement firsthand. Progress _is_ being made, but it's frustratingly slow.
[1] http://www.sfmtra.org/blog/2016/10/26/the-sfmta-removed-safe...
[2] http://sfist.com/2016/10/19/sfmta_says_street_safety_improve...