just how miserable and even humiliating the pedestrian experience is here

I ended up talking to some woman yesterday who mentioned she loved to come back to Oakland because of how walkable it is compared where she is now in the central valley. I was amused at the whole exchange because while Oakland and San Francisco do a decent job, they're by no means great.

  Cars parked in short driveways often extend all the way across the sidewalk.
  Even if you can easily step off onto the road to walk around them (not all
  pedestrians can), it just feels like a slap in the face to have to do that.

One of the big things I noticed when comparing the pedestrian experience in Manhattan (and to a lesser extent the outer boroughs) to San Francisco is that New York lacks the curb cuts that encourage this kind of behavior. You spend a lot less time walking around parked cars or having to keep an eye out for someone who's in a hurry to exit "their" driveway.

In San Francisco, at least, there's a big tug of war about where your driveway ends and the curb begins. Suffice to say blocking the curb is one of those things that's almost never enforced.

Also this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/155z0eo/frien...