Haight and Pierce Streets. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The SFMTA is installing ladder crosswalks at intersections along the Wiggle.

By increasing the visibility of the pedestrian right-of-way, the new feel they bring even seems to calm bike and car traffic. The crosswalks should also assuage concerns from those who say the growing number of bicycle commuters on the route makes the intersections less comfortable to walk across.

The improvements come along with green-backed sharrows guiding bicycle riders, which crews have installed at three intersections and along Waller Street. The southbound lane of Steiner Street, where a crossing was striped connecting Duboce Park to Herman Street late last year, appears to be slated next, as the old sharrows have been ground off there.

Both the green sharrows and ladder crosswalks arose from the SFMTA’s ThinkBike sessions with Dutch transportation planners.

More photos after the break.

Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize/Flickr

Waller Street. Photo: Mark Dreger, San Franciscoize/Flickr

Photo: Google Maps via SFist

Forty-seven year-old Sena Putra was killed by the driver of a gasoline tanker last Thursday at 13th and Folsom Streets under the Central Freeway. He is the seventh pedestrian killed in the city this year.

According to the SF Chronicle, police said Putra was in a crosswalk on 13th Street at 12:55 p.m., crossing with the green light, when the northbound truck driver turned right and hit him. The driver stopped and “cooperated with investigators.” No arrests or citations have been reported. It’s unclear how fast the driver was going and why he or she failed to yield to Putra.

Putra was returning from lunch to his job as an accountant for UCSF’s Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, according to the Chronicle. He had just become a U.S. citizen after emigrating from Indonesia almost 10 years ago. Colleagues told the Chronicle he was looking forward to voting in the U.S. for the first time.

Under the shadow of the Central Freeway, 13th Street is dominated by high-speed motor traffic that divides SoMa and the Mission. Many neighbors have lamented the reconstruction of the traffic-inducing freeway less than ten years ago at the insistence of Caltrans, despite the city’s proposal to replace it with a street-level boulevard.

“The biggest tragedy is that this could have been prevented if this city prioritized safe streets for walking,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe. ”This intersection and the whole area are built around freeways, not around people. But people still need to cross, just like Sena Putra did.”

“It’s time to put people’s safety first.”

Pedestrians rush across 13th Street at Mission (where it becomes Duboce Street). Photo: Aaron Bialick

The SFMTA is planning to raise a speed limit on Winston Drive (top) and close crosswalks on Fulton Street at Funston and 14th Avenues (bottom). Photo: Google Maps

ESTABLISH – 30 MILES PER HOUR SPEED LIMIT
Winston Drive between Buckingham Way and Lake Merced Boulevard (existing speed limit is 25 miles per hour)

ESTABLISH – CROSSWALK CLOSURE
Closing of the western crosswalk (between the northwest and southwest corners) at the intersection of Fulton Street and Funston Avenue, and close the eastern crosswalk (between the northeast and southeast corners) at the intersection of Fulton Street and 14th Avenue

Speed limit increases and crosswalk closures are unusual for the SFMTA these days — you’ll more typically find speed limit decreases and crosswalk openings on the agenda instead. As the agency notes on its website, the city’s adopted Better Streets Plan recommends “that closed crosswalks be evaluated for opening in order to improve access and pedestrian network connectivity” and that the city “reduce speed limits as appropriate and strictly enforce existing speed limits.”

So why is the SFMTA taking measures that appear to contradict the city’s goals?

Agency spokesperson Paul Rose said that the 5 MPH speed limit increase on Winston Drive, which runs along the edge of SF State University, was requested by the campus police department because the current 25 MPH limit is not “legally defensible” under state law, since the majority of drivers aren’t adhering to it:

In order for their officers to cite people who speed using radar on this street, we need a legally defensible speed limit. A 25 mph speed limit would not be legally defensible for radar enforcement because of state speed trap laws. The state legislature created speed trap laws so that local law enforcement agencies cannot set speed limits as merely a revenue generating scheme. We are therefore obligated to take into account the actual speeds used by motorists in setting the speed limit under the presumption that the majority of motorists drive responsibly. The accepted cut-off of a responsible speed is called the 85^th percentile speed. In the case of Winston Drive, the 85^th percentile speed is 37.0 mph in the eastbound direction and 34.8 mph westbound. We can reduce the speed limit by a limited amount by taking into conditions “not readily apparent to the motorist.” Using those adjustments, the lowest legally defensible speed limit we can recommend for radar enforcement is 30 mph.

As for closing two currently unmarked crosswalks across Fulton Street at Funston and 14th Avenues, which lie next to Fulton and Park Presidio Boulevard — a notoriously dangerous intersection — Rose said that instead of installing new curb ramps, the agency would rather prohibit the “marginal” pedestrian crossings:

This will save money on the installation of new curb ramps along Fulton Street at two marginal locations. The Department of Public Works is planning on installing new curb ramps at all marked and unmarked crosswalks along Fulton Street. These intersections are only 70 feet away from the signalized intersection at Park Presidio Boulevard, which is a better location for pedestrians to cross because of the traffic signal control. The quality of the pedestrian crossing at those two locations is further compromised by the recurrent traffic queues blocking the pedestrian path of travel.

But in both cases, taking measures to calm car traffic seems to be a smarter policy than banning pedestrian crossings and making way for drivers to continue speeding — the very approach of car-centric 20th-century planning that San Francisco seems intent on undoing, according to its stated goals.

“It’s frustrating to see the city move backward, not only from improving streets for walking, but from its own stated goal of opening all crosswalks,” said Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF. “I’m glad SF State police are tackling unsafe conditions, but raising the speed limit is a pretty lousy way to stop speeding; I hope SFMTA will do more to keep students safe.”

Rose didn’t say whether the agency is planning to implement any traffic calming measures on those streets, but the SFMTA has been improving visibility at intersections along Fulton by removing parking spots at corners, also known as “daylighting” (another recommendation of the Better Streets Plan), along with DPW’s planned curb ramps.

The SFMTA engineering hearing, which also includes the Fell and Oak protected bikeways, will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m. at City Hall in Room 416. You can also email staff at sustainable.streets@sfmta.com.

Students on Walk to School Day 2010. Photo: Adrienne Johnson/Flickr

San Francisco became the first major city in California to implement all of its planned 15-MPH school zones, the SFMTA announced today. With proper enforcement, the measure promises make the streets surrounding 181 schools safer and more inviting for students and parents walking and biking.

An SFMTA worker installs a 15-MPH school zone sign last August. Photo: Bryan Goebel/Flickr

“This is a big step forward for everyone who walks in San Francisco,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe in a statement. “We applaud the Mayor’s leadership on this, the SFMTA’s quick action to establish the zones, and the Police Department’s commitment to enforcing these new safer speeds.”

The SFMTA began installing 15 MPH speed limit signs at schools in August. Although the agency originally estimated the zones would go in at around 200 private and public K-12 schools, only 181 “are eligible under a 2008 state law which allows the 15-mph zones on two-lane streets for 500 feet around a school,” reads an SFMTA statement. Captain Denis F. O’Leary, head of the SFPD Traffic Company, said police are out enforcing the signs.

“Walking in San Francisco should be inviting and safe for all residents,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin, who added that the agency “is committed to working with our city partners to ensure that kids can get to their schools safely. We will continue to seek out comprehensive and innovative street improvements for everyone.”

“Hopefully,” said Stampe, “this will be the first of many cities.”

Suzanne Monaco. Photo courtesy of 450 Architects via SFGate.com

According to the SF Chronicle, Monaco was crossing Masonic westbound, grocery bag in hand, at about 5:20 p.m. when the southbound driver hit her. Monaco was rushed to SF General Hospital where she died 30 minutes later. Reports have yet to indicate the driver’s speed, but he has not been cited or arrested by police, nor have they released his name or description. The Chronicle reports that he is “cooperating with investigators.”

“This kind of collision, this tragic outcome, emphasizes for so many people what we’ve known for the past few years, and we keep getting reminders like this: This is an essential traffic corridor, but it’s also a dangerous traffic corridor,” said Michael Helquist, a member of Fix Masonic and writer of the neighborhood livable streets blog Bike NoPa (currently on hiatus). ”Many of the risks are by design, meaning how the street is designed, and that can be changed.”

The four to five-lane section of notoriously dangerous Masonic Avenue is known for speeding car traffic and poor visibility between street users, hindered by a steep rise over a hill. The Euclid intersection also has several speed-inducing “slip-turn” lanes, which pedestrians must often cross in several phases from island to island. Monaco was outside of a crosswalk, according to reports, and though it isn’t clear how close she was to the intersection, a rough look using Google Maps indicates that the nearest crossings (at Euclid and Geary Boulevard) are about 1,050 feet apart, or the length of three blocks in that area.

Although the SFMTA is working on a plan to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety on Masonic between Geary and Fell Street, the hostile conditions on the stretch where Monaco was killed would remain, despite the retail businesses that attract foot traffic, including the popular Trader Joe’s grocery store that Monaco may have been visiting.

Aerial photos from the David Rumsey Map Collection taken in 1938 indicate that this stretch of Masonic was an extension built around 1940 to connect the street’s former terminus at Geary to the end of westbound Pine Street after the Laurel Hill Cemetery was removed. It has become one of the city’s most dangerous corridors since, but a push for safety improvements has gained momentum in recent years.

The Masonic extension between Geary and Euclid, where crosswalks are about 1,050 feet apart, or the length of three regular blocks in this area. Photo: Google Maps

One year ago (nearly to the day), Mayor Ed Lee and then-D5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi stressed the urgent need for safety fixes on Masonic at a Bike to Work Day press conference. “It’s time we take back Masonic,” Mirkarimi proclaimed on the steps of City Hall. “It’s time that we actually step up the city’s game in making sure that Masonic is safe for bicyclists and pedestrians and that we all descend on this cause right now before anyone else gets hurt again.”

“It’s very deserving of attention,” Mayor Lee told Streetsblog at the conference, “particularly when it comes to pedestrian safety.”

In August 2010, calls for safety fixes on Masonic ramped up after 22-year-old German Nils Linke was killed while biking on Masonic at Turk Street by driver Josh Calder, who had been drinking. Calder is scheduled to face manslaughter and DUI charges at a trial beginning on July 13.

61-year-old James Hudson was also killed by a drunk driver traveling nearly twice the speed limit at the same intersection one year ago.

Monaco, described as ”an impassioned, conscious and at times whimsical designer,” worked at local design firm 450 Architects and was on her way toward certification as an architect, according to the Chronicle. Originally from Chico, she held a Master of Architecture degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, where ”she fostered a passion for socially, culturally, and environmentally sustainable design,” according to her biography on the 450 Architects website.

Masonic looking north toward Euclid. Photo: Google Maps

450 Architects principal Richard Parker told the Chronicle that were it not for her tragic death, Monaco would have lived to see her plans for new SFUSD playgrounds brought to life, which she had just completed on Friday. “She was looking forward to it,” Parker said.

Helquist pointed out that all-too-common pedestrian fatalities like Monaco’s are often taken more lightly by the general public than other types of deaths, particularly if the victim was reportedly not in a crosswalk. “If this individual wasn’t in a crosswalk, it’s almost like, ‘Okay, that happens in life, and we’re gonna go on with our day,’” he said. “If she was ten feet over in another direction and she was in the crosswalk, ‘Okay, this is a problem, we have to pay attention to it.’”

“We’re talking about human lives here, and I think that’s gotta be our focus,” said Helquist. “These are serious. I don’t know how we keep accepting or tolerating the high degree of fatalities for pedestrians in the city.”

“The numbness is disturbing, if that’s what it is.”

Photo: Google Maps

Safe bike lanes and pedestrian crossings should be top priorities in the redesign of Second Street. That was the major sentiment at a community meeting on Wednesday, where city staffers rebooting the faltered Second Street Improvement Project asked attendees how they would re-envision the corridor.

The residents who attended worked in small groups. Of the 12 group presentations that came out of the workshop, most called for some form of physically separated bike lanes — be they parking-protected, bi-directional, or striped curbside. There appeared to be little appetite for conventional bike lanes placed in the door-zone as originally called for in the SF Bike Plan. Most of the visions also included reduced traffic lanes, amenities like parklets and bike corrals, and transit-only lanes (or at least lanes wide enough to fit buses). One group called for banning private autos altogether on Second between Market and Harrison Streets.

Although it’s unclear how strongly the community proposals would be reflected in the final plan, the emphasis on safe bike lanes from attendees young and old was a promising sign, given that neighborhood resistance to the removal of car parking or traffic lanes was one of the major factors behind the project’s stall-out over the last few years.

The meeting drew a packed crowd of roughly 100 people, including SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin, SF Department of Works (DPW) Director Mohammed Nuru, and D6 Supervisor Jane Kim, who noted the “amazing turnout” from community members.

“Second Street is one of our priority corridors in our office for pedestrian safety and other transit improvements,” said Kim. “We have a lot of pedestrians that go up and down it, from the Financial District all the way to the ball park, and the work that we could do over the next couple of years for the street will be incredibly important both for our neighborhood and for our city.”

The SF Bike Plan, approved in 2009, had called for conventional bike lanes on Second, but approval was postponed to allow SFMTA and DPW staff to revise the plan. However, after a series of bureaucratic tangles and miscommunications between the agencies, dedicated funds for the project expired in February. Agency staff are now looking to re-fund it through sources like the Prop B street improvements bond, Proposition AA (a local vehicle license fee), and the federal One Bay Area Grant.

A pedestrian was injured at Second and Bryant in March. Photo: Brock Keeling, SFist

Cristina Olea, project manager for the DPW, said the project cost could range between $6 million and $10 million, largely depending on how much concrete work is needed for improvements like curb extensions. Although staff said major sidewalk widenings aren’t on the table due to their relatively high cost, corner bulb-outs could be included to help improve dangerous pedestrian crossings. In particular, many attendees pointed to the intersections at Harrison and Bryant Streets near Highway 80, which both have double turning lanes.

In March, a 35-year-old man was injured in a crosswalk at Second and Bryant by a driver who fled the scene — one of hundreds of citywide pedestrian injuries every year that cost San Francisco about $76 million annually. A woman was also killed at Second and Townsend Streets a year before that. In the last five years, there were 31 pedestrian crashes, 11 bicycle crashes, and 64 vehicle crashes on Second Street, according to a DPW presentation [PDF]. Over a quarter of those took place at the Harrison and Bryant intersections (17 and 12, respectively).

Attendees seemed to voice mixed feelings on removing car parking and banning left turns, both of which could free up room to accommodate bike lanes and speed the 10-Townsend and 12-Folsom Muni lines (the 12 is planned to be replaced by the new 11 Downtown Connector route under the Muni Transit Effectiveness Project [PDF]). A couple of groups recommended including a center turning lane like the one on Valencia Street.

Staff plans to hold two more community meetings in August and October and aim to have the plan approved by the SFMTA Board of Directors in a year. Construction on the project would take a year and could start by 2014.

Be sure to check out the neighborhood advocate blog Great Second Street.

Second and Harrison Streets. Photo: Aaron Bialick

Eddy Street looking west from Hyde to Larkin last Wednesday. Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

“Converting one-way streets to two-way is a proven way to slow traffic, and help neighborhood businesses thrive,” said Livable City Director Tom Radulovich. “It is also good to see San Francisco finally prioritizing the safety and livability of this mostly car-free neighborhood, where four out of five households are non-car-owning.”

The Tenderloin, with its high volume of pedestrians, has seen some of the highest rates of pedestrian injuries in the city since nearly all of its streets were redesigned as freeway-like, one-way traffic funnels decades ago. The change should make the streets safer and more inviting for people walking, bicycling, and shopping.

“San Francisco has a nasty habit of imposing the greatest traffic impacts onto dense neighborhoods that contribute the least to generating auto traffic,” Radulovich added.

Two-waying streets was recommended in the Tenderloin/Little Saigon Community Study adopted by the SF County Transportation Authority in 2007. The projects in the plan have seen repeated delays since its adoption, for reasons that remain unclear, but the SFMTA made progress last August, implementing the first of the conversions on McAllister Street. The study also calls for two-waying Leavenworth and Jones Streets.

The SFMTA converted two blocks of Eddy (Larkin to Leavenworth) and plans to convert four blocks of Ellis (Polk to Jones) by mid-May, said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose. Although the study recommended two-waying all of the one-way blocks on Ellis (from Cyril Magnin to Gough Streets) and Eddy (from Cyril Magnin to Larkin Streets), only the initial six have been approved by the agency’s Board of Directors.

Radulovich said he’s “very happy about the incremental progress.”

Two-waying Eddy also opens the way for the 31-Balboa to run in both directions on the street, eliminating the westbound detour onto Turk Street — similar to the 5-Fulton’s re-route onto McAllister last year. Service on the 31 could be sped up by removing the unnecessary turns, and the route would be simpler for riders to follow. Two-waying Leavenworth and Jones could allow for a similar simplification of the 27-Folsom route.

Radulovich noted that a two-way Eddy also presents an “exciting possibility” for an east-west bikeway on the street, as it is “a relatively level route from Broderick to Market, and could link up with the 5th Street bike lanes if we close the bike network gap on 5th between Market and Mission,” though he said the idea hasn’t been “officially” considered yet.

The SFMTA also two-wayed a commercial stretch of Hayes Street last November.

See more photos of Eddy Street after the break.

Eddy Street looking east from Hyde to Leavenworth. Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

The new configuration on Eddy includes left-turn pockets. geekstinkbreath/Flickr

Photo: Aaron Bialick

Although SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza had previously given a count of 13 fatalities as late as last week, Officer Linda Chen of the Mission Station said she reviewed the data and found the actual number to be 17. Three bicyclists and eight car drivers or passengers were also killed last year, she said, for a total of 28 traffic deaths.

The reason for the discrepancy is unclear, but Esparza said the original number of 13 came from the department’s Hit-and-Run Unit. SFPD has been using the figure of 13 pedestrian fatalities since December.

It’s troubling that SFPD would report such basic information erroneously and let the mistake stand for so long, and it speaks to a broader issue: Local government provides little access to data about traffic injuries and deaths on SF streets. Streetsblog will be taking a look at this issue in greater depth. Stay tuned.

An officer speaks with the young man identified by one witness as the driver. Photo: Patrick Carroll

The driver who ran over a woman in a crosswalk at Pine and Front Streets in the Financial District last Thursday will not receive a citation despite being found at fault, the SFPD told Streetsblog.

Police confirmed that the victim had the walk signal as she made her way through the west crosswalk along Front at 11:55 a.m., walking south, when the driver hit her as he made a left turn from northbound Front to westbound Pine. An officer said the woman’s injuries were not life-threatening, and the driver will not be cited. The officer would not say why.

Photo: Google Maps

A woman was injured by a driver yesterday while crossing Pine Street at Front in the Financial District, according to Streetsblog reader Patrick Carroll.

Police confirmed that the crash happened at 11:55 a.m., though they couldn’t provide details yet. Carroll said the woman was taken to a hospital in an ambulance and her condition was unknown. He also said police were “questioning a young man” whom he believes was driving a Ford Mustang.

In his email to Streetsblog, Carroll noted that Pine and Front, where two turning lanes cross the worn-down crosswalk where the woman was hit, is “a very dangerous intersection for pedestrians”:

There are many cars that make the left from northbound Front to westbound Pine.  The proximity of this intersection to Market & Front means that drivers on northbound Fremont that want to go to westbound Pine will try to get across both intersections quickly in order to make both lights.  In fact, it’s easier to jaywalk across Pine Street on the red, because there is very little car traffic going west on the unit block of Pine from Market to Front.  Something needs to be done with this intersection before someone is killed.

As we’ve noted, an average of three people are hit by cars every day in San Francisco. 899 pedestrians were injured last year, 96 percent of them by motor vehicle drivers, according to police data.

We’ll provide more details as we get them.

Photo: Patrick Carroll

Photo: bhautik joshi/Flickr

More than a year after the Mayor’s Pedestrian Task Force began meeting to develop San Francisco’s Pedestrian Action Plan, the SFMTA said the agency expects to finalize the document by late summer. Unclear, however, is whether the plan will include a measurable commitment to implementing physical pedestrian safety infrastructure.

To meet the targets set in former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety — a 25 percent reduction in injuries by 2016, and 50 percent by 2020 —  the document will lay out a blueprint for safety improvements on wide, high-speed streets known as “arterials,” where pedestrians are most at risk of serious traffic injuries, SFMTA Senior Transportation Planner Frank Markowitz told the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee yesterday.

The plan would also set metrics to gauge the city’s progress toward four goals: Reducing severe and fatal pedestrian injuries, reducing injury inequities between neighborhoods, increasing walking trips as a share of all trips, and providing “high-quality walking environments.” The Task Force expects to begin conducting public outreach in May and to release a draft plan in mid-summer, said Markowitz.

“Most of the actions would be implemented in the next two, three years, funding permitting,” he said.

The strategies in the plan will include physical traffic-calming measures as well as media campaigns, upgraded speeding enforcement technology (i.e. LIDAR guns), and more thorough data collection on injuries, said Markowitz. Other efforts already underway, he added, include 15 mph school zones – 88 percent of which have been implemented as of last week, according to the SFMTA. The agency also continues daylighting street corners, installing pedestrian countdown signals, and more.

Physical street improvements, like corner sidewalk bulb-outs, improved crosswalks, and traffic-calming measures, said Markowitz, will be largely funded by incorporating pedestrian infrastructure into transit and bicycle projects, since dedicated revenues for pedestrian improvements are scarce. Funding would also depend on allocations from Prop B bonds, which include $50 million for pedestrian and bike projects.

Aside from the goals set by the mayor’s directive, specific measuring sticks haven’t been proposed yet, and there’s no word that they’ll include the type of commitments in New York City’s plan, after which San Francisco’s is partly modeled. The NYC Department of Transportation’s Pedestrian Safety Study and Action Plan set out to re-engineer 60 miles of streets each year, including 20 miles of “intensive safety redesign.”

Markowitz noted the need for concrete metrics to hold agencies accountable to the plan. “We need to increase the visibility of the commitments by all the agencies that are involved in this area — the MTA, Public Health, Public Works, the Police Department, and so on,” he said.

Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, who sits on the Task Force, said the organization is pushing for a commitment of fixing ten miles of streets per year, including three miles of major redesigns, as part of the plan.

“It’s great to have complete streets. These improvements absolutely should be made in concert with others,” said Stampe, who pointed out that calming motor vehicle traffic and improving pedestrian visibility make streets safer for all users. ”But they shouldn’t be the afterthought, and they shouldn’t be the first thing to get cut out, and that’s what we’ve seen a lot with street plans.”

Still, Stampe said she hopes the action plan will push various agencies to better coordinate on street projects that often overlook “a tremendous opportunity to add a bulb-out and improve safety for crossing,” which “frustrates a lot of people.”

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of the Task Force so far, she said, has just been getting the various agencies to communicate on pedestrian issues. ”I think we’ve moved forward really well on that,” she added.

The intersection of Castro, Market, and 17th Streets where Sutchi Hiu was killed. Photo: Google Maps

D8 Supervisor Scott Wiener today pointed to the need for pedestrian safety upgrades at dangerous, high-speed intersections along Upper Market Street in light of the recent bicycle-pedestrian collision at Market and Castro that killed 71-year old Sutchi Hui.

“We have a city that, despite all the work we’ve done, is still in large part designed for cars,” Wiener said at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “Castro and Market, for those who cross it — and I cross it multiple times every day — is incredibly wide.”

Fixing “disastrous” intersections “all along the Upper Market corridor,” he said, “requires investment, it requires prioritizing making these kinds of expenditures, because it does save lives when you reduce crossing distances, when you increase visibility for all users of the road.”

Hui’s death, he added, is “another reminder that we need to keep moving forward with enforcement, with education, and with the investments to make our city the pedestrian-friendly place that we know it needs to be.”

Bayshore and Alemany Boulevards, next to a Highway 101 onramp. High-speed motor vehicles on streets like these still pose the greatest threat to pedestrians by far. Photo: Aaron Bialick

In the midst of a wave of media attention around the recent bicycle-pedestrian death in the Castro, walking and bicycling advocates today re-affirmed the greatest dangers facing pedestrians on San Francisco’s streets: high-speed roads and dangerous driving behavior.

In a KQED radio forum this morning, Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe, SF Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) Executive Director Leah Shahum, SF Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Bert Hill, and Captain Al Casciato of the SFPD Traffic Company all seemed to agree that the recent death of Sutchi Hui was as tragic as any, and that safer streets will require better street engineering as well as more effective enforcement and education efforts to elicit more courteous behavior among people using all modes of transport.

Still, there’s no question, they said: The vast majority of the more than 800 pedestrian injuries or deaths on San Francisco’s streets every year involve motorists and occur disproportionately on high-speed “arterial” streets.

“In a way, this is kind of a man-bites-dog story,” Stampe said of the bike-ped crash — an event receiving an unusual amount of attention precisely because it happens so infrequently, while too-common car-pedestrian crashes go vastly under-reported. ”This is a real tragedy,” Stampe continued. “I don’t think anybody disagrees, a lot of people are upset, and it’s not okay for people to be hit in a crosswalk and killed in San Francisco. But the fact remains that three people a day are hit by cars… and that’s an underestimate.”

In fact, four other pedestrians have been killed this year alone, according to the SFPD, two of them in the same week as the bike-pedestrian fatality. The death of one still-unidentified victim killed by a Muni bus driver also made national headlines, but the other three victims killed by auto drivers, including 45-year-old Tom Ferguson (killed on the same day as the bus victim), received little more than a few blurbs in the media.

As the SF Bay Guardian pointed out, from 2000 to 2009, 220 pedestrians were killed in San Francisco, mostly by car drivers who rarely face criminal charges. None of those deaths are known to have involved bicycles. Media attention, however, seems to have focused on the two fatal bicycle crashes that occurred within the last year, and their reports rarely provide the statistics about traffic deaths in San Francisco. (Some of the more dramatic cases, like the Concord driver who ran over a family biking on the sidewalk this weekend, killing two, tend to garner more media attention.)

The behavior of Chris Bucchere, the bicycle rider who killed 71-year-old Sutchi Hui at Castro and Market Streets, has been roundly condemned, even by bicycling advocates, particularly in light of an online post in which Bucchere described “plowing through the crosswalk” and seemed more concerned about his broken helmet than about Hui.

“Of course, if there were problems and someone behaved recklessly, they should be held accountable. I would be the first to say that,” said Shahum of the SFBC. “Fortunately, though… these are very rare occurrences.”

The SFBC, Shahum pointed out, has long provided bicycling education classes and outreach efforts which instruct bicyclists to always yield to pedestrians. In fact, the organization released its new “Bicycle Rules of the Road” tip sheet for its Bicycle Education and Safety Week during the same week Hui was injured. Last Friday, in light of Hui’s death, the SFBC set up an outreach booth to hand out safety literature on Market Street and released a statement saying staff is “deeply saddened” by the news and “troubled” by Bucchere’s account of the crash.

While a few callers on this morning’s forum complained of bicyclists “flying all over” with impunity, Captain Casciato assured the audience that officers issue “quite a bit of citations” to bicyclists. He also pointed out the value of offering alternatives to traffic fines. In “the next couple weeks,” he said, the department will roll out a bicycle and pedestrian traffic school program, similar to the options available to drivers. The department will also make it easier for bicyclists who have received traffic citations to file formal complaints about street engineering that is difficult for bicyclists to navigate legally, he said.

Far more effective in reducing pedestrian injuries will be the SFPD’s new targeted enforcement plan, which focuses on the most dangerous violations in the areas with the highest rates of pedestrian crashes. As Stampe pointed out, over half of the city’s pedestrian injuries occur on just five percent of its streets — namely, high-speed roads in areas like the Tenderloin and South of Market.

“It’s pretty intuitive. It’s the wide, fast streets that act like freeways, where folks feel like they can drive really fast and don’t have to watch out for each other,” said Stampe. “What that tells us is if we can target our enforcement and our fixing the streets in those areas, we can make a big difference pretty fast and keep a lot more people safe.”

Ken Bastida, newfound pedestrian safety advocate. Image via CBS 5

“We’re about to do something here that really could be taking your life into your hands,” Bastida said before entering a crosswalk.

He’s not kidding: Two or three people are injured on the city’s streets every day, statistically speaking. And Bastida, being the hands-on newscaster he is, was in the field to get to the root of this “growing problem for pedestrians,” as CBS 5 put it.

“We talked to a lot of the people who live in the neighborhood. It’s not just this neighborhood,” Bastida said before cutting to an interview with a man on the street. I was glad to hear him acknowledge this — a pedestrian was injured around the corner from my home in the Inner Sunset that evening.

This issue needs more scrutiny from the media. After all, 800 pedestrian injures are reportedly hit every year, and 13 people were killed last year — the vast majority by cars.

Except Bastida wasn’t there to talk about cars. CBS sent the journo-turned-pedestrian-advocate out there to talk about bikes.

That’s because a bicycle rider hit an elderly man at that intersection yesterday morning, and both were hospitalized. “Witnesses say a bicyclist came barreling down the street, right down Castro, through the red light, and struck him,” Bastida said. Fortunately, both parties seem to be making a recovery today.

There’s no excuse for colliding with a pedestrian in a crosswalk, no matter what your mode of travel. But there’s also no excusing the double standard apparent in the media’s obsession with bike crashes, while traffic injuries caused by motorists go vastly under-reported.

Like Bastida, many local media outlets took up the cause of pedestrian safety after yesterday’s crash. The story even held one of SFGate‘s three photo-feature slots for hours on its front page.

Yet, despite the abundance of pedestrian injuries caused by drivers, reporters like Bastida don’t seem as quick to cover them.

As I wrote earlier this week, the media generally tends to jump all over relatively rare pedestrian crashes with bicyclists and Muni drivers while overlooking the far bigger risk posed by private motorists. (There was one very welcome exception in the Chronicle yesterday: Columnist and former pedestrian-victim-blamer C.W. Nevius conceded that when you look at the numbers for pedestrian injuries, “It is pretty hard to escape the conclusion – it’s the drivers’ fault.”)

In fact, news crews were nowhere to be seen after SFist reported a crash at Castro and Market last Saturday in which a woman was hospitalized by a driver. Yet yesterday, CBS sent not one, but two reporters to cover the bike-ped crash at that same intersection. (Watch Linda Yee try to get the SF Bicycle Coalition’s Andy Thornton Thornley to say that people on bikes feel “entitled,” as I’m sure she does with AAA for every car crash she reports on.) Anchor Allen Martin even made sure to tie yesterday’s crash to Critical Mass, which is kind of like tying the typical car crash to Nascar or a presidential motorcade. Cars are involved, but the similarities end there.

If CBS is going to stay on top of the pedestrian safety beat, I’m still hoping to see a camera crew in my neighborhood today. Just last night, my girlfriend came across a woman injured in a crosswalk at Irving and 14th Avenue, just around the corner from where we live, and I went out to investigate.

Officer Santiago in the crosswalk on Irving and 14th Ave. where a woman was hit last night by a driver. Photo: Aaron Bialick

According to San Francisco Police Officer Eric Santiago, who responded at the scene, at about 7:35 p.m. the driver, a roughly 45-year-old man, injured a woman of about the same age while she was crossing 14th in a crosswalk marked with bright, yellow zebra stripes. The driver was making a left turn from eastbound Irving.

The woman’s injuries didn’t sound as serious as those of the man hit by the bicyclist in the Castro, though she also needed treatment at the hospital.

The most glaring difference I can see between the two cases is that pedestrians are constantly being hit by cars, not bikes. When I walk down that same street, as I do almost daily, I’m not worrying about the people on 30-pound bicycles. It’s the multi-ton, motorized masses of steel I’m watching out for.

While the police told reporters that the bicyclist at the Castro crash “might” have run a red light, Santiago was quick to clear the driver on Irving of any wrongdoing, despite his obvious failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Pedestrians always have the right-of-way in a crosswalk, and it’s incumbent on the driver to respect a bright yellow one not controlled by a traffic signal. But Santiago said the driver didn’t get a citation for violating the pedestrian’s right-of-way and hospitalizing her, nor was he likely to.

“This is an accident. It wasn’t intentional,” Santiago told me.

Bastida, where are you?

Photo: SFBC/Flickr

The San Francisco Police Department yesterday announced a commitment to reduce pedestrian injuries through targeted enforcement of dangerous driving.

In a joint statement with Walk SF, the SFPD said it will target violations like speeding and red light-running, especially in areas with the highest pedestrian injury rates. SFPD also plans to sign an agreement soon to share data with the SFMTA and the Department of Public Health, to implement “systematic” education and enforcement at new 15 MPH school zones as each one rolls out, and to streamline its reporting on enforcement to the Pedestrian Safety Task Force.

The new emphasis on pedestrian safety was prompted by last month’s incident in the Tenderloin, where a van driver slammed into an elderly pedestrian with the right-of-way in a marked crosswalk, writes Walk SF:

Walk SF recently met with the Police Chief and the Mayor’s office… We will be meeting with the District Attorney as well, to urge more action on penalizing dangerous driving.

This is a real milestone. This is a commitment to accountable enforcement of the laws that protect you when you walk.

Walk SF appreciates the commitment by the Police Department and the Mayor to making San Francisco’s streets better and safer for everyone.

In the joint statement, Walk SF and SFPD note that “these actions will help to meet the city goals set by the 2010 Mayor’s Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety to reduce serious and fatal pedestrian collisions by 25 percent by 2016 and by 50 percent by 2021.”

Read the full statement after the break.

Joint Statement from the San Francisco Police Department and Walk San Francisco on Pedestrian Safety and Traffic Enforcement

March 28, 2012

After meeting with Walk San Francisco, the San Francisco Police Department would like to take the opportunity to join with Walk San Francisco in a statement of concern and action in response to the pedestrian hit in the crosswalk in the Tenderloin, as well as additional recent pedestrian collisions.

1) Update on the Tenderloin collision:

The Police Department heard the community’s concern about the crash in the Tenderloin and has issued a citation to the driver for failing to yield to a pedestrian in the crosswalk.

Walk San Francisco will meet with the District Attorney this month to discuss how and whether the driver in this instance can be charged and on how to penalize dangerous driving moving forward.

2) Additional actions to increase safety:

Enforcing 15-mph school speed zones:

The Police Department is currently implementing a systematic approach to enforcing all the city’s new 15-mph safer speed zones around schools, working closely with the Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA):

Each month, SFMTA gives the police the location of all new 15-mph zones. The following month, police go out and warn drivers at each school of the new speed limit, and the month after that, police issue tickets for speeding at each school.

This is an excellent precedent for citywide targeted enforcement. The police will continue to report on enforcement activity at each Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force meeting.

Enforcing pedestrian right-of-way:

Neighborhood enforcement: As part of each neighborhood police station’s regular traffic enforcement, police will carry out weekly actions citing drivers that fail to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks. These enforcement activities will be focused in the most dangerous areas, identified on the map of police data showing high-injury corridors and intersections.

Citywide enforcement: The Police Department’s central Traffic Company, the motorcycle police who carry out most of the city’s traffic enforcement, will also undertake weekly crosswalk right-of-way enforcement at the highest-priority locations identified on the map of police data showing high-injury corridors and intersections. This enforcement will rotate locations to ensure that over the course of a year, all of the most dangerous areas are covered.

Walk San Francisco will assist the Police Department in publicizing these activities to increase awareness.

Targeting enforcement on the most dangerous locations and behaviors:

Focusing enforcement: The Traffic Company is currently focusing traffic safety enforcement in high-injury corridors, citing the most dangerous behaviors:

• Speeding
• Failure to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks
• Running red lights and stop signs

Reporting on enforcement: The Traffic Company will report these enforcement efforts—citations, hours spent, locations, etc.—on a monthly basis to the Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force, of which Walk SF is a member.

Supporting the police’s ability to enforce: Currently, reporting on enforcement is made difficult by the fact that officers still have to actually hand-write citations and have them manually entered into a computer afterward. The SFMTA has committed to funding the purchase of 70 handheld electronic citation devices within the next six months, as well as setting up a computer program that will track and report on citations. This will be part of the Traffic Company’s reporting on a work order with SFMTA to do traffic enforcement on city streets.

Data sharing:

The Police Department, the Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), and Department of Public Health hope to sign a data-sharing agreement soon and continue creating a system to share collision data promptly; a key piece of this will be transitioning this year from handwritten police collision reports to a modern electronic reporting system shared among agencies. This will inform enforcement and engineering efforts to make the streets safer for everyone.

The Police Department is putting together a request for funds, tools, and staff needed to implement this.

3) Making San Francisco’s streets safer:

These actions will help to meet the City goals set by the 2010 Mayor’s Executive Directive on Pedestrian Safety to: reduce serious and fatal pedestrian collisions by 25% by 2016 and by 50% by 2021, increase walking citywide, and reduce inequities among neighborhoods in pedestrian safety.

The Police Department is currently working with the Mayor’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force on a Pedestrian Strategic Action Plan to be finished this year. The plan will include additional enforcement actions to meet these goals, such as deploying additional technology such as more accurate “Lidar” speed guns, and additional targeted enforcement around schools, including schools without 15-mph zones and with the Safe Routes to School program.

The Police Department is strongly committed to keeping San Francisco’s residents, visitors, and workers safe and comfortable on city streets and looks forward to working with other city agencies and with Walk San Francisco to help everyone enjoy the city on foot.

The new plan would add features similar to those implemented on a block of Minna between Sixth and Seventh Streets last year. Image: SFCTA

The Western SoMa Neighborhood Transportation Plan would bring traffic-calming measures like chicanes, greening, pedestrian bulb-outs and raised crosswalks along Minna and Natoma Street between Seventh and Ninth and Ringold between Eighth and Ninth. It would also add crosswalk markings and traffic signals across the arterial streets they meet.

“The plan and the designs create safe, inviting space in one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly parts of the city,” said Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe.

The improvements are just one step in the Western SoMa Community Plan, which includes a long-term effort make SoMa safer and more inviting for pedestrians. Jim Meko, chair of the West SoMa Citizens Planning Task Force, said the goal of the Transportation Plan is to streamline a set of priority projects to pedestrianize SoMa alleys, where he said most residents live.

“We wanted to do smaller things that people would begin to notice right away,” said Meko. “With the alleys that we chose, it will begin to also introduce the social heritage aspects of the plan. The Minna and Natoma alleys are particularly important to the Filipino community… and Ringold has always been important to the LGBTQ community.”

The improvements could be implemented as soon as 2014 depending on funding availability, according to the report. Once implemented, the alleys should feel more like “shared” streets (known as “woonerfs” in the Netherlands), where motor vehicles are allowed, but pedestrian uses take precedence.

“In this neighborhood, there is a relative scarcity of park space, and the real sources of community space in this area are the streets,” SFCTA transportation planner Chester Fung told the Plans and Programs Committee last week. “We know that the alleys are promising in some ways — they are quiet respites, refuges, from the high-traffic arterials.”

The location of the alleys within the designated West SoMa Plan area.

Speeding and cut-through car traffic in the alleys would be discouraged by features like landscaped chicanes and car parking that alternates sides to mitigate the “wide-open” feel that invites drivers to rush through to the next block. Other features to be added include pedestrian-scale light fixtures and bicycle racks.

Right now, “There’s a lot of speeding that’s happening in the alleys,” said Fung. “That creates inhospitable pedestrian conditions.”

The plan would also add markings and landscaped sidewalk bulb-outs to increase pedestrian visibility at mid-block crossings on Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Streets. Although pedestrians can already legally cross at these junctions, there are often no markings signaling that to drivers, making them dangerous to traverse. SoMa sees some of highest rates of pedestrian injuries and fatalities in the city.

“Even if you’re walking along the alley, at some point you have to emerge onto one of those streets that are basically freeways,” said Stampe. “You have to make sure that drivers are aware that people will be crossing and that they need to slow down and be careful.”

The plan also calls for traffic signals at those intersections. Although Stampe thinks adding signals can be useful in some cases, an over-reliance on them can be counterproductive to transforming streets into the kind of traffic-calmed, pedestrian-oriented environments that physical street changes could bring throughout SoMa.

“In a city like San Francisco, it’s ridiculous to have signals that say, ‘Watch out, a pedestrian!’ and that pedestrians are unusual, when in fact they’re the norm,” said Stampe. Still, to make headway “on these streets that are designed already to be acting like freeways, and have drivers responding like they’re on freeway, [sometimes] you kind of have to speak freeway.”

Planned improvements for Minna and Natoma crossings at Eighth Street. Image: SFCTA

Improvements for Ringold, including chicanes and side-alternating parking. Image: SFCTA

The media often doesn't give due attention to the most frequent cause of traffic injury on SF streets: pedestrian victims hit by car drivers. Photo: Matt Smith, SF Weekly

The crashes were strikingly similar: Both victims were males in their 40s who were reportedly crossing mid-block, and both drivers were apparently sober and stayed at the scene.

But while the death of 45-year-old Thomas Ferguson — hit by a private auto driver on Lombard Street near Van Ness Avenue — only appeared in a handful of local media outlets, the death of the unidentified man hit by a Muni bus driver at Hayes and Fillmore Streets was picked up by the Associated Press. The wire report broadcast the news of a transit vehicle driver killing a pedestrian in publications across the country. So far, in the SF press, the Muni collision has generated about twice as many stories as the Ferguson case.

Yet the statistics show that relatively few pedestrians in San Francisco are killed by Muni drivers — far and away, most are killed by drivers of private cars. Of the 13 pedestrians killed in 2011, two were hit by buses, according to SFPD data, and all but one of the others by auto drivers. About three pedestrians are injured in San Francisco traffic every single day – the vast majority by cars.

All pedestrian deaths are preventable, and in order to save lives we have to understand what causes car-pedestrian fatalities, then take steps to prevent them. Yet the media seldom seeks out and publishes the details of these cases.

Given past coverage of similar cases, we probably won’t see follow-up reports about what caused Ferguson’s death. A vague description from Bay City News labeled Ferguson a jaywalker “apparently walking outside of the crosswalk” when he was ”struck by a passing vehicle.” There was no mention of the driver’s speed. (The driver was only mentioned to note that he or she was “very cooperative.”)

It was last July when a media firestorm followed the case of Randolph Ang, the first bicyclist to kill a pedestrian in the Bay Area in at least five years. Just two weeks ago, Ang’s sentencing received an inordinate amount of coverage compared to the more than a dozen car-ped deaths each year. Seldom do San Franciscans learn what sentence, if any, a fatally reckless driver receives. And while the Ang case was followed by calls in the local press for a crackdown on bicycle riders, it’s hard to imagine that Ferguson’s death or the other pedestrian deaths caused by drivers this year will result in calls for a crackdown on drivers.

Whether it’s simply because rare news grabs headlines, or because most editors and reporters are immersed in a car-centric culture that won’t face up to the greatest dangers on our streets, our local media is failing to convey vital information about the dangers faced by people walking in San Francisco.

Image: ABC 7

It’s a common sight in downtown San Francisco, drivers line up on a bustling street, waiting to make a turn, and one or two impatient motorists can’t seem to believe that pedestrians are crossing in front of the queue.

When the queue moves, if that driver reaches the crosswalk and then runs over a pedestrian, should he or she be able to escape the consequences of committing what is effectively assault, so long as they claim not to have seen the victim?

In the case of the paratransit van driver who ran over a man at Eddy and Leavenworth Streets in the Tenderloin this Valentine’s Day, the “I didn’t see him excuse” worked like a charm. Surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts make it plain that the driver honked impatiently then ran down the victim in a marked crosswalk, yet the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office says no criminal charges can be brought against him because he stayed at the scene and “cooperated” with police, the victim didn’t die, and law enforcement determined that he was not driving “recklessly.”

Charges of reckless driving, according to DA spokesperson Omid Talai, only apply when the driver is “in willful and wanton disregard for the safety of other people.” In this case, the victim was hospitalized and will likely suffer life-long consequences, but without a reckless driving charge, the only consequence for the perpetrator will be a single traffic citation for failing to yield — and even that ticket probably wouldn’t have happened if not for a show of outrage from pedestrian safety advocates.

If San Francisco expects to have streets where people are safe to walk without suffering debilitating injuries, then the DA should consider this driver’s actions to be reckless. It’s clear that the driver was impatient and careless enough to barrel through the intersection as though no one were nearby, even though he was behind the wheel of a multi-ton motor vehicle in a crowded downtown neighborhood that sees as much or more pedestrian crashes as any other in the city.

The walk signal was on, the sun was out, the crosswalk was marked with an especially visible design, and the victim was crossing for several seconds before the driver accelerated. The fact that he didn’t see the victim is a result of his willful recklessness, not a test to determine whether recklessness occurred.

If someone can inflict serious injuries on another person by recklessly operating a lethal machine, and get right back behind the wheel without so much as a suspended driver’s license, then our legal system is broken.

Image: ABC 7

It took a show of public outrage, but the SFPD has reversed course and decided to issue a traffic citation to the paratransit van driver who was videotaped running over a man who had the right of way at Leavenworth and Eddy Streets last week. The driver will be cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian; no criminal charges will be filed as of yet.

An SFPD spokesperson had initially said police wouldn’t cite the driver in the “unfortunate” crash because he cooperated with authorities, but the department apparently changed its mind after Walk SF rallied members to call on the SFPD and city leaders to “defend everyone’s right to walk safely.”

“What a shame that no action is being taken against the driver of the van who was obviously negligent,” wrote one member in a message to the mayor, the District Attorney, the SFMTA and the SFPD last week. “The message this sends to San Francisco drivers is that it’s okay to run over people that are obeying rules when crossing a street. Our streets are unsafe and we need to do something about it!”

The SFPD’s citation is the bare minimum that could be applied in this case, according to Shaana Rahman, an attorney who defends pedestrian victims in civil court. “The gross negligence of this driver is absolutely clear,” she said. ”Not only does the video show that the victim had the right of way, it also shows that the pedestrian was in the crosswalk for several seconds and was clearly visible to the driver, had the driver been paying attention.”

Denis O’Leary, head of the SFPD Traffic Company, said the driver wasn’t intially cited at the scene because “he was not feeling well and ended up in the hospital.” O’Leary said he ordered officers to cite the driver for failing to yield to a pedestrian after the crash was evaluated by a state-certified investigator. However, Rahman pointed out that the driver violated at least one other law — California Vehicle Code 22107, which prohibits moving “right or left upon a roadway until such movement can be made with reasonable safety.”

In the surveillance footage, the driver can be seen running the victim over in a highly-visible crosswalk while he had the walk signal. The man, who walked with a cane, was pinned under the van for 20 minutes and sent to the hospital with several broken bones.

While some would like to see criminal charges brought against the driver, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office says there aren’t sufficient grounds without having more information. SF District Attorney George Gascón has prosecuted four drivers for killing pedestrians in recent months, but DA spokesperson Omid Talai said last week’s case is different because the victim is expected to survive.

“There’s no law on the books that we can point to to charge an individual who, without intent, negligently and accidentally injures a pedestrian, or bicyclist, or individual in their car,” said Talai.

However, the DA can file charges for reckless driving, which Talai said is defined “as any person driving any vehicle on a highway who is in willful and wanton disregard for the safety of other people and property. Often times, that’s when someone is under the influence, on their cell phone, or has a cast on their leg.”

Did the van driver’s actions in this case constitute “willful and wanton disregard for the safety of other people”? The DA’s office says they would need more evidence to decide. “If we’re presented with more information [by the SFPD], we would definitely take a hard look at the surrounding circumstances, and then make an informed decision,” said Talai.

Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe said, “Gascón’s concern about dangerous behavior on the streets is commendable, but this kind of obvious endemic injustice needs action,” and that the organization “is eager to work with the District Attorney to develop the tools needed to prosecute these crimes.”

Talai could not say whether Gascón would consider lobbying to change state law to give prosecutors more leeway to press charges for dangerous driving.

“We do not relish having to prosecute people for these incidents. We’d all be better off if these accidents never occured,” he added. “Among California cities, San Francisco historically has the highest per capita vehicle-pedestrian collision injury rate. While [that has] declined over the last decade, we can and should do better to make our streets even more welcoming for pedestrians and bicyclists.”

Demand for traffic calming improvements like these outstrips funding by a factor of five to one. Image: SFMTA

The demand for projects to calm motor traffic and improve safety on San Francisco streets is far greater than the SFMTA can currently handle.

The agency says its Traffic Calming program lacks the staff and funding needed to address the overwhelming number of neighborhood requests for safer streets. As a result, many residents are left waiting a decade or longer for improvements that are proven to save lives and prevent injuries.

“We feel like there’s been such a latent demand — or current demand, even — for traffic calming that, given various limited resources, these requests are piling up,” SFMTA Livable Streets Senior Engineer Mike Sallaberry told the SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Plans and Programs Committee last week, which approved funding for program staff to revise its five-year project prioritization plan.

According to Sallaberry’s presentation [PDF], the SFMTA receives an average of six to eight applications for traffic calming improvements every month, adding up to more than 500 since the agency began accepting them in 2001. By the time the SFMTA started implementing projects in 2005, staff already had over 135 approved applications in the pipeline.

The SFMTA has put its application process on hold until later this year as it determines which projects to prioritize over the next five years. The backlog of projects for that time frame would require an estimated $64.7 million to implement, $27 million of which have been planned (or are being planned). But only $12.4 million will be available to build out the projects, according to projections presented [PDF] to the SFMTA Board of Directors this week by Chief Financial Officer Sonali Bose. The funding comes from various grants and the city’s Prop K sales tax revenue, which is allocated by the SFCTA to transportation projects citywide.

How the SFMTA sees its capacity to meet the demand for traffic calming. Image: SFMTA

Sallaberry explained that traffic calming requests are prioritized according to the severity of the safety problem in a given area, based on factors like the number of crashes.

“If your area is not the worst in the city, we have to deal with the most severe problems first,” he said.

For each application, the wait to reach the top of the list could take one year, or it could take over five years, Sallaberry said. At that point, staff begins a six- to 18-month community planning process, followed by a planning and implementation phase that takes at least two years — or more than five, depending on the project’s size.

“Traffic calming evokes strong emotions in people, so we want to make sure our process is as thorough as possible, albeit reasonable timeline-wise,” said Sallaberry.

But as local streets take a back seat to more dangerous high-speed arterials, where pedestrian crashes are most likely to occur, District 2 Supervisor and SFCTA committee member Mark Farrell said he was concerned about seeming unresponsive to constituents who might bemoan the lengthy timeline for local street improvements.

“I don’t want to be faced with an instance where, ‘Hey, there are cars buzzing down the street, my kid almost got run over, it happens every week,’ and — ‘Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it,’” said Farrell.

Sallaberry assured the supervisor that traffic calming on local streets would still ultimately be addressed, though he reiterated that improving arterial streets delivers the most “bang for our buck.”

Traffic calming projects planned or in planning, totaling $27 million. For a list of current projects, see the SFMTA's traffic calming page. Image: SFMTA