Looking east at the new crosswalk on the north side of Market Street. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The SFMTA opened a new crosswalk this week along Market Street across the three-way intersection with 14th and Church Streets, eliminating the need for people to cross in a longer two-step phase. The crosswalk, which comes as part of the ongoing Church and Duboce Track Improvement Project, was installed along with a new right-turn vehicle signal to create a safe window in the traffic sequence for pedestrians to cross.

But Streetsblog reader Joel Franquist says he witnessed the aftermath of a car crash which he believes was caused by a flaw in the new traffic signal sequence, and he’s concerned that it will continue to create a risky situation for people walking, biking, and driving through the intersection:

The new right turn arrow is for drivers turning off Market to go west on 14th St. (or north on Church). These drivers used to go with the with the rest of the traffic on Market, which meant there was a 10-second gap before Church got the green (during which drivers going east on 14th got the green light). Now these cars proceed immediately before the cars on Church do. There are actually a lot of these cars because 14th leads directly to Roosevelt and destinations such as Ashbury Heights.

I started observing the intersection [Thursday] around 4:30 pm, and noticed that just about EVERY time the light turns green for Church, there are still cars crossing Church headed for 14th on the new arrow light. Often these cars are still on the other side of Church when the light changes. Everyone on Church — drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists — doesn’t have a good view of these cars coming off Market, especially if they are behind a J that’s boarding passengers.

The new crosswalk (not shown) connects corners along the north side of Market Street, completing the triangle across both 14th and Church. The new right-turn signal controls westbound vehicle traffic along Market turning right onto Church or 14th. Image: Google Maps

It was easy to predict that there would be an accident if someone going southbound on Church simply went without looking when the light changed green. And sure enough, when I went out again around 6, there had been exactly this type of accident. A car coming south on Church had broadsided a car headed toward 14th. The car that was hit happened to be a UCSF Police car. The accident caused closure of 14th Westbound and one land of Church southbound, backups on all three streets, and a re-route of the 37 bus.

The problem is a dangerous one and will result in more accidents if not fixed. The new timing is especially dangerous for bicyclists and pedestrians coming south on Church and crossing 14th St., or for bicyclists headed for 14th with the right turn arrow. If the UCSF Police car had been a bicyclist, the rider would probably be dead, and it would not be his or her fault.

It’s true that drivers who end up blocking Church mostly enter the intersection on the yellow or red arrow. But they are encouraged to chance it because the light only lasts ten seconds. And when the problem happens nearly EVERY time the light cycles, then the timing needs to be changed. Also, it can happen to a driver who goes on the green, if the car in front of them is turning into Church and is delayed by pedestrians legally crossing Church.

You might be wondering what the change was supposed to accomplish. Well, the change means that pedestrians crossing 14th can now proceed most of the time, instead only when Church has the light. And the city opened a new crosswalk that allows pedestrians to cross both 14th an Church on one light, instead of having to wait for two lights. (The new crosswalk couldn’t previously exist because it would not have been safe at any time.) So the new setup is more pedestrian-friendly (at least if cars obey the lights).

There were also numerous cases this evening of drivers simply running the right turn arrow while red, and pedestrians crossing Market stepping in front of the cars turning off Market onto 14th. However, much of that will presumably lessen as regular users of the intersection become used to the changes. And some of that confusion also predates the changes. It’s a complicated intersection, and will always confuse some people.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the agency “will continue to monitor the situation and make any necessary adjustments.”

Have you visited the intersection since the change? Share your observations in the comments.

San Francisco's first green bike box installed along with a left-turn bike lane on Scott Street two years ago. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

As bicycle traffic increases along the Wiggle, improved crosswalks and other potential traffic-calming measures could help assuage complaints police say they’ve heard from some residents that stop sign violators are making it a less comfortable place to walk. Though no significant bike-pedestrian crashes are known to have been reported, police have begun stepping up enforcement in the area against people on bikes (and drivers, they say) who officers determine to be running stop signs and red lights.

“That’s not going to solve the problem,” says Morgan Fitzgibbons, co-founder of the Wigg Party, a group focused on promoting environmental sustainability in the neighborhoods around the Wiggle. He said rude or dangerous behavior is limited to a minority of bicycle riders, and while an education and outreach initiative on the streets would be a good idea, the root of the problem is that “these streets are simply designed for cars.”

Current stop sign laws, pointed out Fizgibbons, are tailored for car movement. While Idaho has allowed bicycle riders in that state to treat stop signs as yield signs with positive results for nearly 30 years, California requires both bicyclists and drivers to come to a full stop. Advocates say the Idaho approach — which still requires bicyclists to slow down and yield to others who have the right-of-way — simply legitimizes common practice, since people on bikes can safely negotiate smaller intersections like those on the Wiggle without the need for a full stop, while also clarifying expectations between different users.

“If you start designing the streets for the use that it actually receives, then you’re going to engender an attitude of respect from cyclists,” said Fitzgibbons. “I think when you start making the Wiggle a known place [for bicycles], and create that identity around the Wiggle, then you can start holding the cyclists who use it to a higher standard.”

Last September, SFMTA planners looking to transform the Wiggle into a more walkable, liveable, and bikeable place sought inspiration from Dutch planners, who in recent decades have pioneered and refined street designs to safely accommodate people on foot, on bikes, and in cars.

Waller Street at Steiner on the Wiggle, where a temporary bike corral was installed for display in late 2009. Photo: SFBC/Flickr

During the two-day ThinkBike workshops, planners took a ride along three of the city’s main bike corridors: Market Street, Polk Street, and the Wiggle. Drawing on Dutch expertise, the groups sketched conceptual re-imaginings of the streets and listed recommendations for a more pedestrian- and bike-friendly environment. This year will see the first of those ideas [PDF] implemented on the Wiggle.

In the coming months, the SFMTA plans to install “green-backed” sharrows (seen already on Market Street at Van Ness) and continental crosswalks (a.k.a. “zebra-striped” — one was installed along Steiner last year) along the route from Steiner to Scott Streets, states an SFMTA report [PDF] submitted to the SF Bicycle Advisory Committee last week. The report also mentions that “wayfinding and traffic engineering improvements to the Market/Duboce/Buchanan intersection are under consideration.” The critical bikeway link on Fell and Oak Streets, connecting the Wiggle to the pathway on the Panhandle, will also come next winter — a few months sooner than recently reported — according to an SFMTA presentation.

"Green-backed" sharrows, also called "super sharrows", will be painted along the Wiggle in the coming months, the SFMTA says. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Come summer, the Church and Duboce Track Improvement project is expected to be completed with an exclusive green bike “channel” on Duboce near the Church intersection, connected by paint markings guiding bike riders across rail tracks in the intersection, said SFMTA planners. Green-backed sharrows will also be installed on Duboce to complement the others, and other improvements include new lighting, wider sidewalks and boarding islands, greening, new pavement treatments, sculptures, and more.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition “looks forward to immediate and longer-term improvements to the Wiggle, a critical biking pathway and a wonderfully vibrant residential and commercial area,” said deputy director Kit Hodge. “Communities in the Duboce Triangle, Lower Haight, Alamo Square Area have been making piece-meal improvements to the Wiggle area for years, which has improved local commercial corridors and enhanced the experience for those walking and biking.”

“The creative energy and desires for art and greening can be joined with long-supported traffic calming in the neighborhood to create an improved large-scale neighborhood — starting right now.”

Measures like raised and more-visible crosswalks, bulb-outs, reduced car traffic, and other traffic calming improvements could help make walking across streets on the Wiggle more comfortable. But until they come, police seem to be targeting behaviors that aren’t necessarily the most dangerous, particularly when compared to the danger from drivers. Bicycle commuter Stuart Krengel said he and a friend were ticketed by an officer last week for a stop sign violation while making a right turn onto Pierce Street from eastbound Page Street.

A rendering of Duboce at Church Street after the completion of the Track Improvement Project expected this summer. Image: RHAA via SFMTA

The officer, according to Krengel, told the riders they were required to put their foot down at the stop sign. ”We made a safe right turn, and got made an example of,” said Krengel, who claimed the officer dodged questions about the legitimacy of the citation and seemed unfamiliar with the Wiggle, but said police would be targeting stop sign violations there for six weeks. On Market Street, police were also spotted today “running a sting on cyclists running red lights,” according to a report from Uptown Almanac.

SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza denied that police were targeting bicyclists for any particular period of time. “There is enforcement because of complaints from the community that bicyclists are running red lights, not stopping at stop signs,” he said. “It’s a safety effort. We want to make sure that people are aware that they can get a citation for not obeying the rules of the road.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition, said Hodge, believes “there shouldn’t be any question: pedestrian safety always comes first.” At the same time, the organization continues “to work with the city to prioritize the enforcement of the most dangerous behavior from all road users, ensuring that our streets are safe for everyone,” she said. ”We’re excited to see the city putting energy into this vibrant corridor, where a huge and growing number of people are biking and walking.”

The ThinkBike sketch of Scott Street between Page and Oak.

While Page and Pierce — the corner where Krengel was ticketed — isn’t technically on the Wiggle, Scott Street (one block over) could benefit from concepts sketched at ThinkBike. Many drivers and bicycle commuters move quickly through the somewhat wide intersection of Scott and Page, which lies next to a slope on Page — another popular bike route.

To calm Scott, ThinkBike planners recommended redesigning it as a “slow shared street” which doesn’t separate bikes and cars, but deters cut-through motor traffic and slows speeds using features like wider sidewalks with chicanes, more greening, and a planted traffic circle in the intersection (an idea that has been tried unsuccessfully on Page before).

Plans to implement the more substantial recommendations have yet to surface, but Fitzgibbons says the ThinkBike workshops and the initial projects coming out of it are encouraging. Still, he’ll wait until they’re on the ground before declaring progress.

“There’s often a gap between the good intentions of many people who work [at the SFMTA] and the implementation,” said Fitzgibbons. “What you end up having is a political leadership — namely the mayor, and on down from there — who instead of wanting to do the right thing and improving the city, they’re more concerned with taking everybody’s temperature.”

“When that’s your goal, you’re always going to run into people who aren’t on board. If that’s your tactic, you’re never going to get anything done.”

The SFMTA plans to implement guideway markings recommended at Duboce and Church Street.

A sketch of the intersection at Duboce, Steiner, and Sanchez Streets drawn by planners at ThinkBike.

An SFMTA report says staff is considering "wayfinding and traffic engineering improvements to the Market/Duboce/Buchanan intersection," where the gateway to the Wiggle lies.

"Bulb-outs", or curb extensions, like this one at 7th Avenue and Irving Street could be installed more easily under a new proposal. Image: Google Maps

The proposal, sponsored by Supervisor Scott Weiner and Mayor Ed Lee, was moved forward by the SF Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee today. It would streamline the bureaucratic process for building sidewalk extensions (a.k.a. “bulb-outs”) — a street design tool often used by planners to calm motor traffic, improve pedestrian visibility and comfort, and ease transit boardings at stops — by eliminating an outdated requirement for changes to sidewalk widths less than one block long to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

“This will be a significant improvement in our process in terms of making our city more pedestrian-friendly and safer for pedestrians, improving the vibrancy of our commercial districts, and creating more public space that is not for cars, but rather for people,” said Wiener.

“Upon adoption of the Better Streets Plan, we’ve seen more and more projects come through for minor sidewalk changes such as corner bulb-outs for individual projects that don’t exceed one linear block,” said Nick Elsner of the SF Department of Public Works (DPW), the primary agency responsible for implementing sidewalk extensions. ”This would greatly expedite and make the process much more efficient.”

According to legislative documents [PDF], the proposal would amend an ordinance passed in 1910 requiring project approval from supervisors, which “result[s] in a very lengthy process and often lead[s] to project delays.” It would also establish a speedier approval process for the SF Planning Department, but projects would still need to be approved by other affected agencies like the SFMTA. The change would save the DPW an estimated $2,500 in processing costs for a block of construction, said spokesperson Gloria Chan, and the SF Planning Department would save about $1,375 in reviews.

Bulb-outs, the documents note, are an important tool in pursuing the city’s goals of improving the pedestrian environment. Stephen Shotland of the Planning Department said the proposal is intended “to be able to move projects forward that really are consistent with the General Plan and consistent with the adopted Better Streets Plan,” which, along with several neighborhood plans cited in the documents, call for improvements like widening congested sidewalks, minimizing crossing distances, and discouraging high-speed car traffic on local streets. “Staff would be able to review projects to make sure that, in fact, is the case,” said Shotland.

The proposal passed the committee today without objection and is expected to go before the full board in the coming weeks.

Buffered bike lanes now run on fresh pavement on Sloat Boulevard. Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize

The six-lane speedway known as Sloat Boulevard has been somewhat tamed after Caltrans implemented a road diet last week, reclaiming two vehicle lanes for bicycles.

Long known as a virtual no-man’s-land for biking and walking, Sloat is technically a state highway that runs through the Parkside District. The stretch between 21st Avenue and Everglade Drive should be safer now, with new buffered (though unprotected) bike lanes running along the left side of parked cars and other pedestrian safety improvements.

“For too long, Sloat’s freeway-like design has been a danger to people who walk in the Sunset,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “This is a great step toward helping people feel safer and more comfortable walking around the Zoo, Lake Merced, and of course San Francisco State University.”

Mark Dreger first reported the installation on his new blog San Franciscoize (a spin-off of the famed beacon of bicycle culture, Copenhagenize):

This development is especially exciting because this portion of Sloat Blvd is a state highway (CA-35) under the jurisdiction of Caltrans. While California’s Department of Transportation does have a Complete Streets Program, they have a longstanding reputation of prioritizing movement of automobile traffic over other modes of transport. Nevertheless, the agency has gone ahead with enhancements to the safety and comfort of walking and bicycling on this important street and deserve some sincere credit.

With the roadway for cars now reduced by roughly 22 feet, drivers should feel less invited to speed. Caltrans also plans to reduce the speed limit in the near future from of 40 mph to 35 mph. Even by Caltrans’ automobile-centric standards, Dreger noted, ”there is not nearly enough volume to justify three lanes in each direction.”

Photo: Mark Dreger

The bike lanes are seven feet wide with four-foot buffers (seemingly plenty of room for protected bike lanes if such designs had the Caltrans stamp of approval). The improvements on Sloat also come with visible ladder-style crosswalks, painted “yield” arrows (often called “shark’s teeth”), and signage instructing drivers to yield.

“These changes are a good start,” said Stampe. “To reduce speeds further, it would help to see pedestrian islands, wider sidewalks, and some vertical additions like trees or soft-hit posts to visually narrow the street and signal to drivers that they are not, in fact, on a freeway.”

Historically, Caltrans has acted slowly to improve Sloat, particularly at the intersection of 19th Avenue – another Caltrans highway — which is commonly ranked among the most dangerous in the city. Last year, the intersection saw three vehicle crashes in which four people were injured, according to police data. Along Sloat, two pedestrians were hit by drivers last year, and in January of 2010, 54-year-old Feng Lian Zhu was killed by a driver near Forest View Drive.

The project was initiated by Caltrans after District 4 Supervisor Carmen Chu requested safety improvements on Sloat, which divides the Parkside neighborhood from Stern Grove and the Sunset District to the north.

“Congratulations to both Supervisor Chu and Caltrans for proactively reimagining a dangerous street in to one that makes walking and biking much safer and attractive, helping many more families from the neighborhood and far beyond enjoy the many wonderful destinations in this part of town,” said Kit Hodge, deputy director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC).

While bike lanes were also striped recently on nearby Portola Drive by the SFMTA as part of the SF Bike Plan, the newest ones on Sloat fall just short of connecting with those and others planned between the Great Highway and Skyline Boulevard [PDF].

No plans to connect the gaps are known as of yet, but the SFBC is encouraging supporters to let Caltrans staff and city leaders know they appreciate complete streets improvements and that more are needed.

Photo: Mark Dreger

New "continental", ladder-style crosswalks were installed along with yield signs and arrows (out of shot). Photo: Mark Dreger

At Walk San Francisco’s big member bash last month, Mayor Ed Lee celebrated San Francisco becoming the first big city in the state to take swift action to make neighborhoods safer for kids to walk to school by implementing 15 mile per hour zones at 60 schools out of 180 to come.

Mayor Lee speaks at a Walk to School Day press conference in October. Photo: Marianne Szeto

“We will, in our lifetimes, get to zero” pedestrian deaths, declared the Mayor, calling for “experimenting out of the box with every possible idea to make streets safer.”

The mayor set a bold vision for San Francisco, and an “out of the box” approach may be just what we need to reach it. But to stand by his commitment, Mayor Lee must provide the leadership our city needs to make smart, immediate investments to improve pedestrian safety in 2012.

Over half of the city’s serious and fatal pedestrian crashes occur on just 7 percent of the city’s streets, according to the Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force, which started work last year on former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s December 2010 Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety [PDF].

That finding can provide critical guidance for the city to effectively direct its resources — from traffic enforcement to street redesigns — to save the most lives. Streets that are safer and more pleasant to walk on, research has shown, also tend to increase home values and benefit the bottom line for local businesses and city coffers.

We have the funds available to invest in safer streets. San Francisco voters in 2010 approved Prop AA, a vehicle license fee that helps fund pedestrian safety improvements, as well as last fall’s Prop B, which provides $50 million in bonds for both walking and biking.

As Mayor Lee begins his first full term in 2012, here are a few key initiatives he can take to save lives and help boost the economy:

Half of the city's serious and fatal pedestrian crashes occur on 7 percent of its streets. Image: SFDPH

• Create a Pedestrian Action Plan to fix 10 miles of streets per year. New York City has committed to improving pedestrian safety on 60 miles of streets per year, and San Francisco can set similar goals. The Better Streets Plan was a good start, but it lacked any commitment by the city to implement it. How much will the city do, and how soon? What can city agencies do to reduce the costs and time it takes to calm motor traffic and widen sidewalks?If Mayor Lee is serious about pedestrian safety, he will set clear goals for delivering the better streets our city has been promised for so long.

• Pilot low-cost projects to fix the worst streets. It’s time for a new approach to fixing our most dangerous streets with the haste we need. Mayor Lee can support low-cost pilot projects to make quick and visible changes by scaling up the parklet-and-plaza approach — let’s see what happens if we paint SoMa’s high-speed arterials to look less like freeways, install a parklet along an entire block, and put planters on street corners to make crossings safer. This week’s pilot project to reappropriate car parking lanes for pedestrian space on Stockton Street in Chinatown during the Chinese New Year is an excellent example of a way to support the local economy and improve the pedestrian experience.
• Enforce the laws that keep people safe. San Francisco police are now systematically enforcing the new 15 mph speed limits around schools, but we need to expand this strategy citywide to target the most dangerous behaviors like speeding and red-light running. Mayor Lee must work with the Police Chief Suhr and District Attorney Gascón to make it clear to the public that endangering others will not be tolerated.
• Make Sunday Streets a part of the city landscape. Sunday Streets is a proven success, and it shouldn’t just be a pilot anymore. It’s more than a street fair, more than an event — it transforms car-dominated streets into public space and provides health benefits that outweigh the costs of running the program. Mayor Lee can show his pride in Sunday Streets by making it a permanent and regular part of the city landscape that residents can rely on. San Franciscans should be able to know that on Sundays throughout spring, summer, and fall, they won’t have to worry about cars on streets like 24th in the Mission, Grant in Chinatown and North Beach, or the Great Highway along Ocean Beach.
• Use the America’s Cup “People’s Plan” to make the streets work better for people. This is the year to show the world that San Francisco has smart alternatives to snarled traffic. Let’s put up wayfinding signs showing how long it will take to walk to the water. Let’s finally really get rid of the Embarcadero Freeway by providing more room for people to enjoy the waterfront on foot or by bike. Let’s expedite transformative projects like the Fisherman’s Wharf Public Realm Plan and reserve some streets exclusively for walking — who knows, we might like it so much, we’ll never go back.

Mayor Lee knows that improving streets can make the city thrive. Getting Prop B passed was a great start; now it’s time to walk the walk and use it wisely.

A driver violates the left-turn signal in front of a bicyclist at Fell and Masonic. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Dale Danley at the Panhandle Park Stewards blog first reported the new automated enforcement mechanism, as well as a crosswalk upgrade at the nearby Oak Street intersection.

The red light camera was installed just days after a December 20 crash in which a driver injured a man on his bicycle at the busy crossing.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the SF Examiner the camera will be activated this month and that fines “will range from $480 to $522, depending on whether the offender takes traffic school.”

According to the SFMTA website, San Francisco was the first city in California to pilot photo enforcement in 1996, and the program resulted in a 40 percent decrease in violations at five intersections after six months. As of 2010 [PDF], 24 intersections in the city were photo-enforced.

The additional enforcement could provide a quick safety boost, but as Bike NoPa writer Michael Helquist pointed out in the Examiner, the number one priority for the neighborhood is the “Boulevard” redesign of Masonic. That project was approved by the SFMTA board of directors in the summer. However, advocates are concerned that Mayor Ed Lee’s commitment to the redesign has waned and that implementation could get bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

See photos of the improvements after the break.

Photo: Panhandle Park Stewards

The upgraded crosswalk at Oak and Masonic. Photo: Panhandle Park Stewards

A rendering of CPMC's proposed 555-bed hospital and medical office building at Van Ness and Geary. Image: Rebuild CPMC

Nearly 10,000 additional cars [PDF] are predicted to travel every day to the gigantic Cathedral Hill California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) at Van Ness and Geary after it opens in 2016. While the city is negotiating how much the institution will pay to help mitigate the impacts those cars will have on Muni and pedestrian and bicycle safety, some advocates argue that won’t make up for a fundamental flaw: The medical center will include too much parking.

The 555-bed hospital and medical office building will include more than 1,200 parking spaces. CPMC projects half the visitors and employees to come by transit, foot or bike. But based on CPMC’s track record at three of its existing sites in the city, Marlayne Morgan of the Cathedral Hill Neighborhood Association doesn’t think that’s likely.

CPMC’s transit incentives for employees aren’t enough, says Morgan. “Even with giving $100 to take public transit, they can’t get 50 percent of their employees out of their cars,” she told the SF Board of Supervisors at a four-hour hearing last week on the transparency of CPMC’s negotiations with the city. “There’s no way to mitigate the impact of this facility unless you take it down in size.”

Cathedral Hill’s staff will be comprised largely of current CPMC employees at its other San Francisco locations, just under half of whom live outside the city, according to the transportation analysis in the CPMC’s Institutional Master Plan [PDF].

“They’re taking three hospitals and putting them in one location,” said Morgan. “It’s hard to believe that this is going to change the patterns at Cathedral Hill.”

Trip mode share at three existing CPMC campuses, from the Institutional Master Plan PDF

CPMC spokesperson Kevin McCormack said employees can get “up to $230 a month in pre-taxed pay to buy commuter checks for use on all Bay Area mass transit from MUNI and BART to Caltrain and van pools,” seemingly a reference to federal tax benefits that also provide incentives for employees to drive to work. (In fact, as of January 1, 2012, the maximum monthly pre-tax benefit for parking will be $240, while the maximum benefit for transit will drop back down to $125.)

“We also have shuttles that run between campuses and to and from Muni and BART stations so staff don’t have to bring their cars into the city or into downtown,” McCormack added. He couldn’t provide information on the parking benefits CPMC offers.

Ultimately, to reduce traffic generated by a specific facility, sustainable transportation advocates say that planners must reduce the amount of parking. “Parking spaces – particularly commuter or visitor spaces – are like magnets for cars,” writes Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal at San Francisco-based Nelson/Nygaard Associates, in his upcoming book Sustainable Transportation Planning.

The Cathedral Hill center would be more transit-accessible than the existing CPMC sites. Its location at the intersection of two BRT lines set to open on Van Ness and Geary in 2016 could lure more employees to take transit. But that also makes the high volume of parking all the more superfluous and the traffic generated all the more harmful to transit performance. As Livable City Director Tom Radulovich told Streetsblog last year, “If you’re going to maximize damage to Muni’s network, that’s where you would do it.”

While no bicycle improvements have been promised, CPMC could help fund an SFMTA study under the agreement being negotiated with the city. But unless protected bikeways are added to streets like Post, Sutter, and Polk, few commuters are expected to bike to the center.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which is pushing for a protected bikeway on Polk Street in its Connecting the City campaign, said in a statement that it “is looking to the CPMC Cathedral Hill to really embrace bicycle transportation for its staff and visitors. Supporting the creation of a top-notch bikeway on Polk Street will benefit the hospital, the neighborhood and countless destinations and people throughout the city.”

The Cathedral Hill center is set to begin construction next year and open in 2016.

A raised crosswalk and landscaped sidewalk bulb-outs now grace the entrance of this block of Newcomb Avenue. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

After a six-year-long process, residents of Newcomb Avenue in the Bayview joined city staffers yesterday to mark the completion of the “Model Block” project, a prototype for street design that’s better for the environment and more conducive to neighborhood life.

The block had been characterized by speeding traffic and illegal dumping. With this redesign it should be a safer, more sociable street thanks to the addition of landscaped chicanes, sidewalk bulb-outs, 20 new street trees, raised crosswalks, and other traffic calming improvements. The new landscaped surfaces will absorb rainfall and prevent stormwater from overloading the sewer system.

“To see the finished project, something this great in the Bayview, is unbelievable!” said Newcomb resident Mardina Graham in a press release from the Department of Public Works. “I have lived in the neighborhood all my life and have never seen anything like this before, perhaps in other neighborhoods yes, but not here.”

Residents will organize community cleanup days to keep the street “clean and green,” according to DPW, while the performance of the new stormwater treatment facilities — projected to reduce runoff by half — will be monitored by the city.

Landscaped chicanes along the curbs are designed to slow drivers. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

See more photos after the break.

Newcomb Avenue before the redesign in May during a press conference for the project's groundbreaking. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru speaks with neighbors, the mayor, Supervisor Mali Cohen, and other city staffers at a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday. Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

Photo: SFDPW/Flickr

District Attorney George Gascón. Photo: Matthew Roth

Last month, District Attorney George Gascón seemed to employ a tough new standard when he filed misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charges against Randolph Ang, the first bicycle rider to kill a pedestrian in the Bay Area in at least five years. The exceedingly rare event drew a tidal wave of media attention and calls for stricter traffic enforcement of people on bikes, and it was followed by targeted police stings on Market Street.

Ang, who hit and killed 68-year-old Dionette Cherney in July when he ran a red light on the Embarcadero at Mission Street, now faces up to a year in jail due to “ordinary negligence that resulted in the tragic death of a pedestrian,” according to the DA’s office.

“The District Attorney’s Office takes seriously any case where criminal conduct is the cause of an injury or fatality,” read the statement. “Before our office files charges on any cases, we need all the evidence and information regarding criminal conduct to build a strong prosecutable case.”

However, the DA does not usually seem to take “ordinary negligence” seriously when it’s careless driving that causes a pedestrian fatality. The vast majority of the drivers who killed pedestrians this year — 11 of 12 — have not been known to face any charges, though there are signs that could begin to change.

Gascón, who was appointed DA in January, indicated late last month that his prosecution of Ang might be followed by stronger policies to hold deadly drivers accountable. He announced that three drivers could be prosecuted for recent pedestrian deaths, and he’s followed through with one of them so far. Gregg Wilcox, the driver who killed William Cox at 14th an Noe Streets in September, was charged last week with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter because he was driving while wearing a leg cast, said DA spokesperson Stephanie Ong Stillman.

The Muni driver who killed 23-year-old Emily Dunn in the Castro could also still face charges along with the UCSF shuttle driver who caused the death of Dr. Kevin Mack, a passenger who was killed in a crash with a big rig the day before Ang’s crash, Stillman said.

A driver hit this woman on Masonic Avenue while running a red light in April. Photo: Matt Smith, SF Weekly

Shaana Rahman, a lawyer who represents victims of traffic crashes in civil court, explained that injuring or killing a pedestrian due to negligence has traditionally been categorized as a civil offense rather than a criminal offense, which requires “intent to harm.”

“What I have seen in my practice is unless there’s an issue where a driver or cyclist is under the influence of drugs or alcohol or driving recklessly and willfully, such as drag racing or something of that nature, by and large there are no criminal charges filed against folks who injure other people in those situations,” she said. Regarding the criminal charges against Ang, she added, “In this situation, with this particular bicyclist where you don’t have those aggravating circumstances, it seemed unusual to me.”

When it comes to protecting pedestrians in San Francisco, the DA’s decision to prosecute Ang, but not most drivers who kill, doesn’t square with the gravest risks out on the streets. While 811 people were injured by drivers last year, just 18 were injured by bicyclists, according to police records. Only 7.4 percent of crashes involving bicycles in the last five years have involved pedestrians, according to the Bay Citizen.

A 2010 SFMTA report [PDF] found that the largest cause of pedestrian injury in 2008 was failure by drivers to yield to pedestrian right-of-way, accounting for 41 percent of cases.

“There’s basically been no penalty for endangering others when you drive,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. “That’s what we’re hoping to see change.”

Gascón’s announcement that he will look into prosecuting dangerous drivers could be a step in that direction. For now, though, charging drivers who kill (at least those who aren’t intoxicated, flee the scene, or claim they didn’t see the pedestrian) remains about as rare as a bicycle rider killing a pedestrian.

The DA’s office could not provide data on how often drivers are prosecuted for killing pedestrians, but a quick glance at cases from earlier this year reveals the type of deadly negligence that typically carries no consequences. The DA did not file charges that we know of in these cases despite reports that indicate that each driver failed to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk:

• The crane driver who killed 71-year-old Lourdes Richman at 2nd and Townsend Streets in March
• The driver who killed 87-year-old Aurora Venida the same week, while she was crossing Geary Boulevard at Arguello
• The driver who critically injured a woman in her 50′s at Park Presidio and Anza in February

“We think it’s clear that these crashes could’ve been prevented,” said Stampe. “We think it should go through the process of the police and the DA’s office looking at what happened, and deciding to charge on a case-by-case basis.”

Is Gascón getting serious about driver recklessness and negligence? Rahman thinks the DA’s recent pronouncements could indicate “a fundamental shift in the punishment aspect of drivers who, in all other circumstances, would be seen as negligent drivers.”

“Criminal charges are important to deter certain behavior,” she said, and with so many cases of negligent drivers who kill or injure other people, “he’s going to have his hands full.”

Edited at 9:18 pm to show that the total number of pedestrian deaths reported this year is 13.

Haight Street looking eastbound from Octavia to Gough. Image Courtesy of the SFMTA and the SF Planning Department

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board of Directors yesterday unanimously gave the green light to a project that will convert the easternmost block of Haight Street to two-way bus operation.

When constructed in 2014, the project is expected to improve transit reliability for the roughly 20,000 daily riders on the 6 and 71 Muni lines by eliminating unnecessary detours that delay buses behind congested car traffic.

The current experience on the 71, said SFMTA Director Joél Ramos, is a ”long and painful ride.”

“I take offense at people who have guffawed at the 3-minute savings,” he said. “When you’ve got a bus load of people, that’s 60 people times 3 minutes each. That turns into hours which quickly turns into days of time for people that are late to work, away from their families, and these are people that are doing the right thing by not driving and getting out of our cars in this transit-first city.”

Britt Tanner, the head of the project for the SFMTA, addressed fears voiced at the hearing by several committed detractors of the project who live on the affected blocks. They contended that the change will add danger to the intersection of Market, Haight, and Gough Streets, which buses will cross in the opposite direction under the redesign.

“This project actually has many safety improvements included in it,” said Tanner, citing sidewalk bulbs, pedestrian signals, pedestrian refuge islands, and crosswalk realignments. She also noted that vehicle crashes at the intersection have dropped 75 percent in recent years after traffic signal improvements were made.

The redesign will convert a car parking lane on the south side of the easternmost block of Haight to an eastbound bus-only lane. That arrangement was based on community concerns raised at workshops over inviting unwanted vehicle traffic to use the new cut-through to Market Street.

But removing one of the westbound traffic lanes instead would further improve safety, said Livable City Director Tom Radulovich and Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, who otherwise voiced their support for the project.

“The street actually has effectively been widened,” said Stampe. “It’s an interesting idea that that could be changed back – having parking along the south side can provide a buffer for pedestrians from moving traffic.”

The intersection of Market, Gough, and Haight Streets. Image Courtesy of the SFMTA and the SF Planning Department via Haighteration

Mayor Ed Lee walks to school with students from Marshall Elementary in the Inner Mission. Photo: Marianne Szeto

Yesterday marked the first Walk to School Day since San Francisco began installing 15 mph speed limit signs near dozens of schools, and thousands of students were a little safer from speeding cars as they made their way to class.

“The new safer speed zones will calm traffic in neighborhoods throughout the city and help more people enjoy walking,” said Walk SF director Elizabeth Stampe, who joined students from Marshall Elementary in the Inner Mission on a “walking bus” along with Mayor Ed Lee, D6 Supervisor Jane Kim, Recreation and Parks General Manager Phil Ginsburg, and SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin.

Fourty-four schools around the city yesterday held Walk to School Day events involving over 7,000 students. According to the SF Department of Public Health, 56 percent of students at Marshall walk to school, and 70 percent live within one mile. School re-assignments this year allowed more students to attend schools in their neighborhood, close enough to walk or bike.

“Providing safer streets throughout San Francisco is a top priority for the SFMTA,” said Reiskin. “As we continue our work to install new speed-limit signs around schools like Marshall, we are collaborating with the Police Department to educate surrounding communities of the significant, but necessary change that will help keep our students safe.”

The SFMTA plans to install 15 mph signs at 213 K-12 schools by December 2013.

A Marshall Elementary parent speaks with Mayor Lee, Supervisor Kim, SFMTA Director Reiskin, and Rec and Parks' Ginsburg behind. Photo: Marianne Szeto

Bicyclists still have to contend with a mess of private auto traffic on Market Street, especially below 5th Street. Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

In a unanimous vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week passed Supervisor and mayoral candidate David Chiu’s resolution calling on the SFMTA to initiate more pilot projects on Market Street to further restrict private auto traffic and make it car-free on a trial basis in advance of the 2015 redesign. The 11 votes were a strong message to the SFMTA that it needs to take more immediate steps to calm private auto traffic on parts of Market Street that are a mess for Muni, and a danger to bicyclists and pedestrians.

The vote comes at a time when a growing of number electeds and mayoral candidates are backing a car-free Market Street. Asked to respond to the passage of the resolution, SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the agency “is committed to making Market Street more efficient for Muni, safer for pedestrians and even more user-friendly for cyclists.”

“We are currently exploring pilots that can be used to test concepts down the road,” he said. Those options include deploying a traffic control officer to New Montgomery to “help coordinate the flow of pedestrians and vehicles” and installing a green right-turn arrow signal at New Montgomery on eastbound Market Street “which alternate when cars and pedestrians have the right of way.”

Drivers turning left onto Market from Montgomery (which turns into New Montgomery) are an ongoing problem, because they use 2nd as a cut-through to the Bay Bridge, creating a backup on Market that sometimes delays Muni all the way up to 6th Street.

Yesterday, a number of parking control officers (PCOs) had already been deployed to Market Street, including the congested 3rd/Kearny/Geary and New Montgomery intersections. At New Montgomery, some drivers had trouble complying with the PCO’s orders. I witnessed an angry SUV driver hop out of his vehicle in the middle of the intersection, and confront the PCO in a threatening manner. He backed down after an SFPD unit pulled up, but then nearly ran over a cop, and was ordered to pull over. I wasn’t able to witness the conclusion.

On Third Street at Market, “drivers are constantly running the red light,” one of the PCOs told me. “This is one of the worst intersections on Market.”

The two back to back signal lights for northbound traffic crossing Market and then Geary are sometimes confusing for drivers. The first light for Market turns red, while the light for Geary just behind it remains green for a few seconds. Seeing only the green, drivers sometimes dart across Market when the signal they should be obeying is actually red.

While deploying PCOs may help, the SFMTA’s response thus far doesn’t fully address the resolution, which states: “Additional near-term pilot projects on Market Street should test further diversions of private automobiles from Market Street in both directions as well as other strategies to reduce Muni delays and improve the safety and attractiveness of Market Street for people walking and bicycling, while still supporting the business and cultural environment.”

The resolution also notes that other pilots the SFMTA is considering “are not poised to make significant impacts on Muni performance.”

“It’s good to see the SFMTA taking some steps, but we need to see more pilots more quickly,” said Judson True, an aide to Chiu.

In reality, it would seem that only Mayor Ed Lee has the power to make changes happen more quickly on Market. Without his support, the SFMTA lacks resources and political power. During last week’s question-and-answer period at the Board of Supervisors, Lee gave an ambiguous answer to a question by Chiu on whether he supports more private auto restrictions on Market.

Lee said he’s behind finding ways to improve Market “for all users” and “supportive of initial trials and pilots,” but skirted around the issue of more immediate private auto restrictions. A phone call and email to the Mayor’s Press Office were not returned.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has relented on his push to strip Transportation Enhancement funding from the six-month surface transportation extension, clearing the way for Senate passage last night and a White House signature today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer says dedicated funding for bike/ped projects is preserved, though Sen. Coburn appears satisfied that Transportation Enhancements is dead. Photo: AP

In exchange for releasing his stranglehold on the Senate (and the estimated 80,000 workers that could lose their jobs, at least temporarily, if the FAA bill lapsed) Coburn will get to insert his language into the long-term bill, when this latest extension expires.

According to CQ Today, Coburn said, “We’ve got an agreement that the next bill will be an opt-out for people on enhancements.” James Inhofe, the top Republican on the EPW committee which wrote the bill, “seems to have played a key role in brokering the deal,” CQ Today reports.

After the vote, Boxer quibbled with Coburn’s description of what will be in the next highway bill. Boxer said she and Inhofe had worked out “reforms” in the transportation enhancements section of the bill and met with Coburn to discuss them before the deal was worked out.

“We felt he would be pleased with the reforms,” she said. “It gives flexibility, without doing damage to the important programs in there.”

Boxer said Coburn made clear that he was “not going to vote for any more extensions” but allowed the current highway funding extension to move forward. “There’s not an opt-out,” she said. “You’ll see what we did. But no, there’s no opt-out. . . . There’s still dedicated funding. It gives more flexibility to the states as to how they will use that funding… It’s flexibility for the states within the transportation enhancements program.”

Clearly, Boxer is in a tight spot, having to placate some of the most conservative members of the Senate while also satisfying the active transportation advocates, in her state and around the country, who have held her feet to the fire on saving dedicated funds for bike/ped programs.

Sen. Coburn’s staff, meanwhile, is alarmed by Boxer’s comments. With the Senate out of session for the week, Coburn is back in Oklahoma and his aides are conferring with him. “Senator Boxer made an agreement with him to include the opt-out provision,” one staffer told Streetsblog. “The fact that she went on the record saying something that is in opposition to their agreement is concerning.”

Streetsblog could not reach the EPW Committee for comment before this story was posted, but we’ll update it if we hear more about exactly what was decided. It may just be a shuffling around of programs, with the essentials of bike/ped dedicated funding maintained, just in a different form.

Coburn was under intense pressure from senators on both sides of the aisle yesterday who wanted to avoid a weekend session, as well as the partial shutdown of the aviation system and the furlough of thousands of workers.

State DOTs and the transportation construction industry have been urging Congress for two years now to pass a long-term bill to restore some certainty to the business. They say the constant extensions create a chilling effect on new projects. Still, given the looming possibility of no extension at all, they are welcoming the six-month extension at current funding levels.

Voting against the extension last night were some of the most conservative members of the Senate. In addition to Sen. Coburn, Jim DeMint (R-SC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

An unprecedented planning effort is currently underway to redesign Market Street, and transform it into a grand car-free thoroughfare in 2015, when it’s scheduled to be repaved. But why should we have to wait that long for a car-free Market Street? There is a growing momentum to do more aggressive trials that would inform the Better Market Street planning process, and divert more private automobiles off Market to improve conditions for people who ride transit, walk or bike.

“I do think that now is the time to accelerate our efforts to improve Market Street,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu.

The District 3 supervisor and mayoral candidate introduced a resolution [pdf] yesterday that calls on the SFMTA to implement more “near-term pilot projects, including increased private automobile diversions, to speed up transit along Market Street while improving the safety and comfort of people walking and biking, and supporting the local commercial and cultural function of the street.”

His comments at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting followed a q-and-a session with Mayor Ed Lee, who was asked by Chiu if he supports more trials to improve Market, and specifically what “on the ground pilot programs should happen soon while the long-term planning process goes on.”

Third Street and Kearny is often congested with private auto traffic during peak hours, delaying Muni and creating unsafe conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Drivers, fresh from the Bay Bridge, continue to drive like they're on a freeway, instead of an urban street. Photo: Bryan Goebel

A frustrated 30-Stockton driver gets stuck in the intersection at 3rd/Market behind private auto traffic. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Lee said he is “supportive of initial trials and projects” and that the SFMTA is working on more experiments, including allowing all-door boarding on surface transit vehicles from Van Ness to Market (50 percent of Muni delays on Market are due to slow boarding), “new and expanded bicycle treatments,” and “improved crosswalk conditions” for pedestrians, especially at 6th Street, which has been identified as one of the city’s most dangerous intersections for walking.

“The staff of the MTA is getting a real important message from both the leadership of City Hall and the leadership of MTA that it’s time to move forward more creatively and in a timely way,” said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “I think this is pretty significant.”

Further details and a timeline for more improvements were not released, but Lee said any new trials would have to involve “input from multiple stakeholders.” The talk concerning reducing more private autos centers mostly around preventing turns onto Market Street, and not the cross traffic, which accounts for 85 percent of the private auto traffic on Market. Calming the cross traffic is definitely another concern among advocates, though.

Since the SFMTA implemented the required right turns at 10th and 6th streets, which are now permanent, conditions for transit, pedestrians and bicyclists have improved. The green protected bike lanes along stretches of Market also provide bicyclists with some dignified space, but it certainly isn’t enough.

The initial trials have also helped lead to a shift in public opinion about Market Street. A majority of the top mayoral candidates now support a car-free Market Street, and many residents and merchants who were originally opposed to the trials have come around to supporting them.

“I’ve not heard a lot of negative feedback to date, so that’s a good sign,” said Ken Cleaveland of the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco, who supports more trials on Market Street, as long as people are allowed “to get accustomed to it gradually.”

While the two required right turns “did reduce traffic a little bit, they haven’t fixed the problems that I see every day on Market Street,” said Tom Radulovich, the executive director of Livable City. “There is a fairly small number of autos, and especially autos trying to turn right on Market Street, that plug up that right lane for buses and bicyclists trying to move through.”

Fifth, 4th and 3rd Streets and New Montgomery are congested during peak hours and Radulovich suggested prohibiting turns at those intersections, or “just making them free of private cars.”

At Montgomery, frustrated afternoon drivers will often turn left, and get onto 2nd Street to cut over to the Bay Bridge. That often creates a line of cars stuck at the intersection, bringing Muni traffic to a halt in both directions (sometimes all the way to 6th Street), and making conditions difficult for bicyclists and pedestrians.

One solution being talked about is to deploy a team of traffic control officers to the intersection to prevent cars from blocking the box, or to just ban the turn entirely, and make the last block of 2nd Street at Market open to northbound cars only.

Aside from reducing more private auto traffic, other ideas for speeding Muni include painting the transit lanes red, and extending the transit-only lane eastbound beyond 5th Street.

“Given these opportunities, we need more pilots now,” said Chiu. “I believe a viable vision for the future of Market Street is a world class avenue that draws its success from the huge number of people it attracts through transit and taxis, on foot and on bicycle, and without private automobiles except for delivery vehicles.”

A 5-year-old boy walking across 3rd Street with his family is in critical condition at San Francisco General Hospital after being run over by the driver of a shuttle bus. Here the details the SFPD is choosing to release, from Officer Albie Esparza:

On 9/8/11 at 339PM an auto vs pedestrian collision occurred at 3rd St / Williams St.

A mother was walking south bound on 3rd street (at Williams) from the n/w to s/w corner.  She had one child immediately with her and the second child, a 5 year old male, was trailing behind. The mother and first child made it across the street.  A private shuttle bus that was e/bound Williams at 3rd then made a right turn onto 3rd Street injuring the 5 year old (that was trailing behind) causing injury.  The child was taken to the hospital by ambulance with life threatening injuries.

The shuttle bus reportedly had one passenger who was not injured.  The shuttle bus driver stopped and was cooperating with the investigation.

The incident is being investigated by the SFPD Hit and Run Detail, which by policy, investigates all major injury and / or fatal collisions.  No citations or arrests were made at the time of the incident. Impairment is not suspected.  Cause of the collision has not been determined. NO FURTHER INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE. Please do NOT call or email for updates.

We’ll post more information as we get it.

William Cox was walking in this crosswalk Tuesday morning, just like this man, when he was run over and killed by an SUV driver. Residents say the intersection of 14th Street and Noe has long been a trouble spot. Photo: Bryan Goebel

On most recent mornings, 59-year-old William Cox walked several blocks from his Mission District apartment to the bustling Peet’s store on Market Street in the Castro for his daily dose of coffee, crossword puzzles and conversation. He had given up his Jeep Cherokee shortly after moving to San Francisco from San Rafael two-and-half years ago and got around mostly on foot and transit. On Tuesday morning, he paid a visit to his best friend, David Douma, who lives across the street from Peet’s.

“Around 9 a.m. he would usually ring my phone to announce he was at my front door, and then he would hang out in my apartment for awhile, every day,” said Douma.

On this day, Cox — known to his friends as Bill — arrived early, around 8:24 a.m., because he was scheduled to help a friend who lives near Ocean Beach move some large musical equipment. It was in his nature, said Douma, to always offer help when a friend needed it. He didn’t stay as long as he usually did, and left a half-cup of coffee behind. Cox then stopped at nearby Rosenberg Deli, Douma later confirmed, before embarking on the four-block walk up Noe Street to catch the N-Judah train.

Sadly, he never made it.

According to San Francisco police, Cox was in the crosswalk on 14th Street at Noe around 10:39 a.m. when he was run over by an unidentified driver behind the wheel of a Ford SUV who had been southbound on Noe, and was making a left turn onto 14th. Cox underwent two operations and despite the best efforts of trauma surgeons at San Francisco General Hospital was pronounced dead at 5:36 p.m., becoming the 10th pedestrian to be killed on the streets of San Francisco this year.

“The surgeons told us that not only was he hit, but he was injured from head to foot. He was completely run over,” said Douma, who was listed as the emergency contact, and spent the afternoon at the hospital with his husband, Claude Wynne, and some of Cox’s roommates and closest friends.

Police said the driver stopped, and cooperated with police, but was not cited or arrested. Details about the driver were not made available.

“We don’t usually release that kind of information,” said SFPD Sgt. Michael Andraychak. The investigator handling the case, Inspector Clifford Cook, would only confirm that the driver was a male and that there were witnesses. He referred Streetsblog’s calls to SFPD public affairs and said he was still in the process of conducting the investigation and it would be up to the District Attorney to decide whether charges would be filed.

‘A Gentle Man’

2008 photo of William Cox courtesy of David Douma and Claude Wynne.

When Douma first met Cox at a bar in SoMa a few years ago “he was coming out of his shell.” As Douma tells it, Cox had been in a long-term relationship with a man suffering from pancreatic cancer and had served as his partner’s full-time caregiver until his death. Cox then decided to move to San Francisco.

Although Cox had a hearing problem and other disabilities, Douma said “he flat out refused to consider himself a handicapped person.” Douma bristled at the suggestion made in some media reports that hearing had anything to do with Cox’s death: “There is no excuse for a left-hand turning vehicle to clobber a pedestrian in the crosswalk.”

Cox wore a small hearing device and “it was amazing what that man could hear with that little thing.” Douma recalled that when he and Cox would go into cafes or bars with loud “boom, boom” music, which he has a very low tolerance for, “Bill would would just reach in his pocket, turn down his device, give me an impish grin and stick his tongue out at me.”

Douma said those who knew Cox, including the regulars and some of the staff at Peet’s, were terribly saddened to hear the news of his death. Gentle was the common word members of the congregation at St. Giles Episcopal Church in Moraga used to describe Cox, who was a volunteer greeter and usher and attended services there on a semi-regular basis, Douma said.

The parish priest said in a newsletter that he was “a gentle spirit who was extraordinarily kind and self-sacrificing ” while a member of the choir described him as “the perfect gentleman.”

Last night, according to Douma, Cox’s two older brothers, Clyde and Darrel, arrived in San Francisco from Hawaii.

A senior (pictured behind the white car) stepped off the curb, and into the crosswalk, but was forced to stop as a driver ignores the pedestrian right-of-way and speeds through the crosswalk. Photo: Bryan Goebel

A Troubled Intersection

Fourteenth Street at Noe is a four-way intersection with stop signs, and sits at the bottom of a hill, surrounded by Victorian homes and apartments, landscaped sidewalks with street furniture and tall trees, and Davies Medical Center. The famed Duboce Park, with its renovated playground, is just one block away, and McKinley Elementary School is a block up the hill at 14th and Castro.

When I visited the intersection yesterday afternoon, I encountered large volumes of walkers that reflected the neighborhood’s diverse population: a group of schoolchildren, medical staff from the hospital, seniors with armfuls of orchids, mothers pushing strollers and neighbors carrying satchels of produce from the Castro Farmer’s Market at Noe and Market. At the same time, I witnessed drivers who blew through the intersection, many talking on their cell phones or texting.

“It’s like everybody’s racing to the next stop sign as fast as they can,” said Emma, a resident who lives near the northeast corner. “It’s stupid. I hear a lot of honking and there’s a lot of traffic.”

According to the SFMTA, the traffic volume on the street is about 4,500 vehicles per day. Many drivers are rushing to the freeway. It’s been a known problem area and residents have been fighting to get traffic calming measures in place, said Peter Cohen, who sits on the board of directors of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association. Although ladder crosswalks were recently striped, something that took several months to get, a frustrated Cohen said a lot more needs to be done.

“I’m pretty grumpy about the whole situation and it’s really tragic that someone was killed because we raised this issue several years ago,” said Cohen, who lives just a half-block down and walks through the intersection daily with his children. “The intersection of 14th and Noe and 14th and Duboce are really pedestrian hazard intersections, and it seems like it’s not even really an issue for the city.”

Drivers like to speed down the hill on 14th Street at Noe.

A group of schoolchildren near the crosswalk where Cox was killed.

Cohen said he pointed out to the SFMTA that there is a lot of high-speed traffic coming down the hill on 14th, and felt as if the agency shunned his requests to implement more traffic calming measures. He suggested removing some of the parking around the intersection to daylight it, and get rid of some of the blind spots that currently exist for drivers.

“How many deaths do we have to see for the city to get serious about committing resources to making it safer to walk?” said Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco. “Drivers frequently fail to stop at 14th. It runs like a mini-freeway through a quiet neighborhood. We know how to calm these streets and save lives. The city needs to commit to fixing a certain number of miles of these dangerous streets every year.”

For Douma, and Cox’s close circle of friends, the sadness is mixed with anger. Douma, who used to live on 14th Street and said he was “almost clobbered by drivers a few times,” is furious the driver wasn’t arrested.

“Just on the basis of the fact that that vehicle hit and ran over Bill, the driver should have been detained and arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, and sort it out later,” he said. “By not detaining that driver now there’s the window of not taking responsibility for one’s actions.”

“And I’m not a conservative,” Douma continued, “I’m a bloody bleeding heart liberal but there are just some things that have to do with justice and doing right by other people that get triggered when something like this happens, and this is a case.”

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Last Saturday, a standing-room only audience of 750 people turned out at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia to pay their respects to Emily Dunn, the 23-year-old woman killed by a Muni driver on August 19 while she was walking in the Castro. Dunn, who had just moved to San Francisco to start a new life, was just a step away from the curb when she was run over at Hartford and 18th streets.

The Muni driver, who hasn’t been identified, apparently violated protocol, and was driving on his own directions, according to the Chronicle, and several other reports. Muni buses don’t normally turn up Hartford from 18th. To date, neither the SFMTA or the District Attorney’s office has issued a public update on the investigation, but the operator has been placed on non-driving status.

“Emily was doing nothing wrong; no cell phone, no texting; middle of the day; observing the crosswalk,” her father, Chris Dunn, wrote in an email to Streetsblog. “She was only 12 inches from the curb. We will never understand God’s reasons. Obviously better training, procedures, instructions, fewer left turns, and a lot of other things can help to prevent anyone else from being taken.”

Dunn said he has not heard anything from Muni about the state of the investigation. A sidewalk memorial of flowers, candles and photos of Emily was still present at the corner of Hartford and 18th.

“My wife, daughter Amanda and I were so thankful for all the people who have reached out and shared memories with us,” Dunn wrote. “If you talked to people who knew Emily they would tell you she was full of life, always on a spiritual journey. She followed her own path but touched so many on her way.”

Dunn asked that we share the audio of the homily from his daughter’s memorial service. It was given by the Reverend Steve Allen, a chaplain at the Lovett School Emily attended from kindergarten through high school.

Download audio file (Emily-Dunn-Homily-Aug-27-2011-1.mp3)

Eastbound Market Street at Octavia Boulevard. Photo: Bryan Goebel

John Billovits is all too familiar with the perils of one of the city’s most hazardous intersections for bicyclists. For the past decade, he has traveled through the Market and Octavia intersection on his daily bicycle commute. As a senior planner at the San Francisco Planning Department, Billovits was also the project manager for the Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan, and fought against building the Central Freeway touchdown on Market Street.

Right turns for eastbound drivers on Market Street are prohibited at Octavia because they present a danger to bicyclists and pedestrians. Allowing the right turn would also create a huge traffic queue on Market Street, causing congestion on the city’s most important transit and bicycle corridor. Billovits outlined the case for banning the right turn in this 2003 memo [pdf].

Drivers who have made the illegal sudden turn south onto the freeway, where there is a bike lane and pedestrian crossing, have caused numerous right-hook collisions over the years, leaving dozens of people hurt. Two people, a pedestrian and a bicyclist, have died from injuries suffered in collisions caused by drivers at the intersection.

Yesterday, Billovits became the latest victim. As he was pedaling his Bianchi Volpe through the intersection around 9:25 a.m., on his way to work at the Planning Department, a German tourist behind the wheel of a rental car made the dreaded right turn and sent the 49-year-old flying.

“I just kind of plowed right into it, and bounced off the car, flew over it, and landed on the concrete, kind of head first, on the other side,” a shaken Billovits told Streetsblog, just hours after being released from the hospital yesterday. “I had a helmet on, which is a sturdy helmet, and so it felt pretty good. I just kind of crumpled over to the side, and it happened really quick.”

“It doesn’t appear right now that I have any kind of broken bones, or broken back, or anything like that. I’m a little achy. I have to wait to see how my body reacts,” Billovits explained, adding that doctors are monitoring him for a concussion. “I wouldn’t say I’m seriously injured. I’m not broken down. I’m at home, you know. They brought me home this afternoon. I think I’ll be okay.”

Billovits wasn’t riding fast “because I’m not much of a speedster person,” and he always slows down because he gets off Market and takes the McCoppin Street cutoff for bicyclists. After the collision, he found himself conscious, but lying injured on the pavement, directly under the no right turn sign.

“I can’t imagine a situation where a citation would be more blatantly called for, you know what I mean? Somebody lying under the sign and a car there at an angle, obviously just made the turn, you know?”

But there was no citation issued. “Impairment is not suspected. No citation issued at this time,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco Police Department, Sgt. Michael Andraychak, wrote in an email to Streetsblog. He described the collision itself in cop talk that seems forgiving of the driver, with no mention that the turn was prohibited.

A small white Chevy sedan driven by an adult female, resident of Germany, made a turn from eastbound Market to Octavia on ramp to US 101.

An adult male bicyclist traveling eastbound Market Street contacted the Chevy, ejecting the bicyclist.

The driver of the car remained on scene.  The bicyclist was transported by ambulance to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Impairment is not suspected.  No citation issued at this time.

“I really am not aware of what transpired there, besides me just getting carted away,” he said of the police investigation. “This hasn’t happened to me before like this, but it was a little confusing. I’m in an accident and they took a report with a piece of paper that says I can request a copy of the report in writing in 7 days.”

Lax Enforcement

As this latest case illustrates, drivers routinely get away with causing collisions and injuring bicyclists and pedestrians at Market and Octavia without so much as a slap on the wrist.

On the engineering front, the SFMTA has tried a number of fixes, and the latest — a concrete median with signage and soft-hit posts — has certainly improved the situation, but not enough, said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

“We call on the SF Police Department to step up enforcement at this known problem area, and we urge the city to add camera enforcement at Market-Octavia to better deter drivers from behaving illegally on San Francisco’s busiest bicycle and transit route,” she said.

Last September, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, AB 2729, that would have allowed the SFMTA to install an automated traffic enforcement system at Market and Octavia to photograph infractions and issue citations to drivers who make the illegal right turn. In his short veto message, Schwarzenegger said current law already allows the city do it.

Earlier this year, Ammiano sent a letter [pdf] to the state Attorney General’s Office requesting a legal opinion on the issue. Eight months later, Ammiano has still not gotten a response, said Quintin Mecke, the state legislator’s communications director. A phone call to the press office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the former San Francisco District Attorney, was not returned.

“It is frustrating that after many months, we are still waiting on an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office as to how best to do this,” said Shahum. “We hope this unfortunate incident will spur state and local leaders to act with more urgency to improve safety on San Francisco’s streets.”

From Billovits’ perspective, there shouldn’t be any turn movements at all at Market and Octavia because “there’s just too much going on.” It’s a case he made 11 years ago.

“I wanted to get rid of both the turning movements, the right hand off and the right hand on,” he said, before reflecting on yesterday’s collision that left him injured. “It’s just so ironic after all the stuff we’ve been through with that, to be lying there and lying under the (no right turn) sign, more or less.”

Option C. Image: SF Planning Department

The Planning Department, working with the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), the SFMTA and SFDPW, recently released three options for dramatically improving the pedestrian environment on a two-and-a-half block stretch of Broadway, a high-volume two-way arterial that cuts through North Beach and Chinatown, a neighborhood that is “the most densely populated urban area west of Manhattan.”

Chinatown has the city’s lowest car ownership rate, and yet its residents — mostly low-income, elderly and monolingual immigrants who primarily walk and take Muni — have to deal with some of city’s worst automobile traffic. Broadway between Columbus Avenue and the Broadway Tunnel is lined with bustling grocery stores and restaurants, including some that have been fixtures in the neighborhood for decades, along with community-based organizations and Jean Parker School.

CCDC, the Planning Department’s outreach partner on the Chinatown Broadway Street Design project, stressed that Chinatown’s 15,000 residents have been historically underrepresented in transportation planning. As an environmental and social justice issue, CCDC has undertaken a collaborative process with the city to bring about a street redesign with strong community input. The effort is part of a Caltrans environmental justice grant.

“There’s some institutional biases going on in terms of planning processes in general, and that’s part of our goal, is to balance a little bit,” said Deland Chan, the senior planner at CCDC. Working with Planning, she said, another objective has been to make the process engaging for Chinatown’s residents, and the materials easy for the non-planner to understand.

At a recent workshop, where plans were presented in Cantonese, participants got a chance to review the tentative design options, which were crafted based on feedback gathered at the initial workshop in May.

CCDC used models to explain the options to Chinatown residents. Photo: Deland Chan

Option A [pdf] would require the removal of the existing morning rush-hour lane in the eastbound direction, and focuses on bulb-outs for increasing pedestrian space and shorter crossings at the corners and mid-block. It would include only sharrows for bicycles. Lighting and street furnishings, such as benches, would be included.

Option B [pdf], a road diet, would remove the eastbound rush hour lane as well as a westbound travel lane, which would allow bike lanes on both the north and south sides. It would include bulb-outs on both sides of the street, along with crosswalk improvements.

“A lot of the participants indicated they wanted to see pedestrian safety improvements. Four out of six groups called for pedestrian scramble signals on Stockton and Broadway, and also wanted to see more sidewalk extension and width there,” Chan explained.

Chinatown merchants surveyed by CCDC last year indicated they thought the Broadway/Stockton intersection was the most dangerous, and the “Chinatown Needs Pedestrian Safety Needs Assessment” report [pdf] noted that Chinatown’s rate of collisions involving pedestrians “is significantly higher than the rate for San Francisco as a whole.”

In an interview, Lily Langlois, the city’s lead planner on the project, and Nick Perry, also a city planner, said their team is tabulating the survey results from the last workshop and is looking to revise the designs based on feedback. They said any new street redesign will have to complement efforts to improve Columbus and the Broadway Tunnel.

The SFMTA has recently indicated it is exploring removing a travel lane to build a bike facility in the north bore of the tunnel. Earlier this year, it scrapped a plan to put sharrows in one of the lanes, after bicyclists complained that it would be dangerous to encourage people on bikes to take the lane.

Perry said the drawings for the three options are focused primarily on basic roadway layout. A more in-depth discussion on streetscape elements such as trees, mid-block bulbs, lighting and seating will occur at a future workshop after a preferred option is selected, he said. The Planning Department’s Environmental Planning division is also working with the SFMTA on traffic modeling and an analysis for all three options as a part of the project.

The Planning Department is encouraging the general public to review the designs and give feedback. You can fill out the survey here.

Option B. Image: SF Planning Department

Photos of Emily Dunn have been posted at the intersection where she was killed Friday. Photos: Bryan Goebel

Her name was Emily Dunn, and over the weekend, a steady stream of friends and people who never knew her brought flowers, candles and photos of her to the site in the Castro where the young woman was killed Friday afternoon by a Muni driver. A grief-stricken friend, who I met Saturday, said Dunn, who was only 23, had moved to San Francisco from Atlanta a month ago and was just beginning a new life.

According to the San Francisco Examiner, Dunn was in the crosswalk and “had crossed the street about 95 percent of the way” when she was run over and killed around 2:30 p.m. by a Muni F-line shuttle turning from 18th Street onto Hartford. “The driver is shaken up by this,” a police spokesperson told the Chronicle, adding that “at this point there is no reason to believe he was impaired.”

In the Castro neighborhood where the collision occurred, the sadness was palpable. On Saturday and Sunday, some neighbors and visitors who didn’t know Dunn brought flowers and paid their respects to grieving friends who gathered at the site. One woman who works nearby told me her friend saw the aftermath, was very traumatized and began noticing “all the drivers who speed on 18th and are on their cell phones.”

SFMTA Chied Ed Reiskin, who went to the scene of the crash Friday, issued a “statement of condolences” on behalf of the agency:

Speaking for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and its 5,000 employees, I express our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the pedestrian killed in the tragic accident this afternoon involving a Muni bus.  Our condolences go out to all concerned during this difficult time. The SFMTA will continue to work with the SFPD as we undertake all necessary investigations of this matter.

Elizabeth Stampe, the executive director of Walk San Francisco, called it a “real tragedy,” and said it points to the need for additional attention “to the priority of pedestrian safety in the city.”

“This could have been anyone hit and killed by a bus. I think this also points to the need for better training for Muni drivers, to watch out for vulnerable users of the streets,” she said. “We’re going to have more and more people walking and biking around our city, and we really need to figure out how to make it safer. We need a lot more fixes to our streets to make them safer.”

The SFMTA has not released any information about the driver, although we do have a request in for more information. We’ll update the story as we get more.

Update, 4:45 p.m : SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the unidentified driver has been with Muni since January, and that he shouldn’t have been driving on Hartford.

“Our policy is to operate buses on streets that have regular assigned service. Hartford does not have scheduled service, and our policy is it should not operate on streets like that,” Rose said. The SFMTA did not immediately know the age of the driver, or where he resides.

A spokesperson for SFPD would only say that the investigation is continuing, and the inspector who is working on the case would forward it to the District Attorney’s office to review if any charges would be filed against the driver.

A reader also tipped us off to this short film featuring Emily that is on YouTube: