Streetsblog San Francisco

Photo: Lance Iverson, SF Chronicle

At the latest city hearing on pedestrian safety, Jane Kim, supervisor of District 6, which sees more pedestrian injuries than any other, contrasted the typical reaction to vehicular violence with the typical reaction to gun violence.

“We should treat cars, in many ways, like a weapon. It has the same impact,” said Kim, pointing out that at least one in five patients treated for traumatic injuries at SF hospitals are victims hit by drivers. “Even if intentional or not, when you are driving a car, you are driving a very dangerous weapon, and you can use it wisely, and use it safely, and not harm anyone, but you can really injure people severely and kill people.”

Yet when a driver kills or maims someone, chances are slim they’ll face any legal repercussions as long as they were sober and they didn’t flee the scene. Why are cars, which injure two to three people every day and killed as many as 20 last year, treated so differently than other weapons?

Of the nine people known to have been killed in San Francisco traffic so far this year, only two drivers are known to have been charged. David Morales was charged with murder after killing 26-year old Francisco Guitierrez and car passenger Silvia Tun Cun, 29, in a car crash when fleeing police after a shooting on New Year’s Day. Kieran Brewer is facing felony charges for killing Hanren Chang on her 17th birthday in a crosswalk while driving drunk on Sloat Boulevard.

Meanwhile, there’s no indication of any legal consequences for the drivers who killed Sunnyside Elementary custodian Becky Lee in a crosswalk last Wednesday, retired teacher Tania Madfes in a crosswalk in West Portal in late March, Eileen Barrett in a crosswalk at Lake Merced in February, Diana Sullivan on her bike on King Street in February, or Melissa Kitson, killed when she was apparently leaving her SoMa office in January.

So this seems to be the takeaway: If you want to kill someone in San Francisco and get away with it, use a car. Just don’t commit felonies or drink before you get behind the wheel.

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A 2007 car crash at 19th Avenue and Sloat killed 21-year-old Sandy Kim of Oakland, who was standing on the corner. Photo: Kim Komenech, SF Chornicle

District 7, one of San Francisco’s most suburban in character, has seen three of this year’s six pedestrian deaths so far. At a hearing yesterday called by D7 Supervisor Norman Yee as his first order of business after taking office in January, residents called upon city agencies to slow drivers on dangerous high-speed streets that cut through neighborhoods like West Portal, Parkside, Sunnyside, and Forest Hill.

The district’s three pedestrian deaths within the last two months each took place on streets known to be dangerous for walking. On February 19, 72-year-old Eileen Barrett was killed by a Muni driver on Lake Merced Boulevard and John Muir Drive. On March 4, Hanren Chang, a 17-year-old Lowell High School student, was run down by an allegedly drunk driver on her birthday on Sloat Boulevard at Forest View Drive in a crosswalk, less than a block from her house. On March 21, 68-year-old Tania Madfes, a retired teacher, was crossing West Portal Avenue at Vicente Street with her husband when a driver ran them down. Madfes died from her injuries a week later.

Supervisor Norman Yee. Photo via Facebook

Most of the district’s pedestrian crashes take place on streets designed for drivers to speed, like Sloat, O’Shaughnessy Boulevard, and 19th Avenue, according to the SF Municipal Transportation Agency. Residents said even in crosswalks where the agency has added treatments like more visible crosswalk markings and signs that instruct drivers to yield to pedestrians, they don’t.

Anyan Cheng, who was a close friend of Chang’s, said she did a one-hour study this week of a pedestrian crossing on Sloat, the speedway where Chang was killed. Even as elderly residents tried to traverse the roadway, she said, “not one car stopped.”

“On Sloat, on 19th Avenue, on Ocean, on Monterey, we need to fix our streets to tame speeds, calm traffic, and prevent more tragedies,” said Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF.

While District 7 carries a generally proportionate share of pedestrian injuries, those injuries are more likely to be fatal, said SFMTA traffic engineer Ricardo Olea. Of the estimated two to three pedestrians injured every day in San Francisco, District 7 sees 8 percent, but 16 percent of the city’s pedestrian fatalities occur there.

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In the first three months of 2013, six pedestrians have been killed on San Francisco streets. At that rate, the city is on course for pedestrian deaths to rise for the third year in a row.

Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe tells KTVU today, "We know what we need to do" to save lives. "We need action from our leadership."

The trend is striking: Since 2010, when 14 pedestrians were killed on San Francisco streets, more have died each year since. There were 17 deaths reported in 2011, and at least 19 deaths in 2012. (The Examiner reports that police data shows 20 deaths that year, and five this year. By our count, it appears one of those deaths may have been mistakenly counted in 2012. We’ve reported on six deaths this year, with the first occurring on the morning of New Year’s Day.)

From 2000 to 2008, pedestrian fatalities were on a downward trajectory: 2000 saw 32 pedestrian deaths, and 2008 saw 13, the lowest number within the period. The rate of pedestrian deaths in the first three months of 2013 is nearly twice as high as the rate in 2008.

Will Mayor Ed Lee go beyond publicity shots and take leadership to curb the rising number of pedestrian deaths on San Francisco streets? Photo: bubbletea1/Flickr

Mayor Ed Lee’s office says the city’s final version of the Pedestrian Strategy, which will include a plan to fund the pedestrian safety improvements that are needed, is expected to be released this week, KTVU reported today.

“We know how to fix these streets,” said Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF. “Delay here means tragedy.”

The latest victim is Tania Madfes, a retired teacher who died in the hospital last Wednesday after she and her husband were run down by a driver in a crosswalk at West Portal Avenue and Vicente Street. The SF Chronicle reports:

A San Francisco woman who devoted her career to encouraging girls to pursue opportunities that had been denied to her has died after she was struck by a car while crossing a street in the West Portal neighborhood with her husband.

Tania Madfes, 68, and her husband, David Madfes, were returning home March 21 from an evening at the Berkeley Repertory Theater and were walking across Vicente Street at West Portal Avenue when a car struck them at 9:40 p.m.

“We were crossing Vicente and – I can’t reconstruct in my head what happened – next thing I knew this car was there,” David Madfes said Thursday. “It hit my leg just as it came to a stop, and I fell and my wife was lying on the street on her back.”

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Image: Google Maps

A driver hit and killed 69-year-old Hector Arana on Wednesday morning at 6:26 a.m. on six-lane San Jose Avenue in the Outer Mission neighborhood. According to reports, the driver was headed northbound in the direction of the nearby 280 freeway, when he hit Arana near the intersection of Liebig Street, where Google Maps shows legal but unmarked crosswalks.

SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza told SF Weekly, ”The driver was not speeding, there were no drugs or alcohol involved, it was just an unfortunate accident.”

“The police are right that this is tragic, but calling it an accident tends to assume that there’s no fault and that it’s not preventable,” said Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF.

Stampe pointed out that in New York, police have officially dropped the term “accident” as of this week. As the New York Times reported Sunday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced that police reports will use the term “collision” instead. ”In the past, the term ‘accident’ has sometimes given the inaccurate impression or connotation that there is no fault or liability associated with a specific event,” Kelly wrote in a letter to City Council.

Will SFPD Chief Greg Suhr step up and make a similar policy change?

“It is possible to find fault,” said Stampe, “and it is possible to prevent [crashes].”

When Streetsblog asked how investigators ruled out speed as a factor, Esparza said in an email, “We reconstruct the collision. There is math, science, physics to determine speed, distance, etc.”

Was the driver who killed Arana watching the road? Could his death have been prevented with better enforcement and traffic calming measures on a street designed to be hostile to pedestrians? According to the SFPD, there are no lessons to learn from San Francisco’s fifth pedestrian fatality this year.

“San Jose is, in all but name, a freeway,” said Stampe. “It could really use gateway treatments to communicate to drivers that they have left the freeway and are now in a community where people live and walk, and they need to watch out.”

“We are eagerly awaiting the mayor’s Pedestrian Strategy, which will lay out how the MTA and the police will do what they can to penalize those at fault and prevent more of these tragedies.”

An allegedly drunk driver was arrested for hitting and killing 17-year-old Hanren Chang on Sloat Boulevard near Vale Avenue on Saturday night. According to CBS 5, 29-year-old Keiran Brewer was driving westbound on Sloat at about 11:20 p.m. when he hit Chang, who was crossing the street in the northbound direction, and dragged her “a short distance.” Update: According to ABC 7, Chang was a student at Lowell High School and had just got off a Muni bus on her way home after celebrating her birthday.

Hanren Chang. Photo: ABC 7

Walk SF Executive Director Elizabeth Stampe said the organization “is saddened to learn of San Francisco’s fourth pedestrian death this past weekend. Hanren Chang was a young girl who lost her life in an awful way, killed and apparently dragged by a car on Sloat Boulevard, one of San Francisco’s most dangerous streets.”

“It’s time for Mayor [Ed] Lee to mobilize city agencies to make our streets safer for everyone, and prevent more needless tragedies,” she added.

Keiran Brewer. Photo via CBS 5

Despite some recent safety improvements, Sloat, a state highway run by Caltrans, remains a deadly speedway dividing the Parkside neighborhood. In January 2012, Caltrans put Sloat on a road diet (converting two of six traffic lanes to buffered bike lanes), upgraded some crosswalks with more visible markings, and lowered the speed limit from 40 mph to 35 mph. However, without further physical traffic calming measures, the lives of residents crossing the street are still at serious risk.

Two pedestrians were injured on Sloat in 2011, and as Streetsblog reported in January 2010, 54-year-old Feng Lian Zhu was killed by a driver on Sloat near Forest View Drive.

“We were encouraged by the recent improvements Caltrans made on Sloat,” said Stampe. “Clearly much more needs to be done, and the city and the state need to work together quickly to add lights and further traffic-calming to fix this deadly road.”

Sloat runs along the border between District 4 and District 7, whose new supervisor, Norman Yee, expects to hold a hearing later this month to review dangerous spots for pedestrians and the status of safety projects. Eileen Barrett was killed by a driver two weeks ago on Lake Merced Boulevard, another high-speed road in Yee’s district.

As of last week, District 4 is represented by newly-appointed Supervisor Katy Tang, who replaced Carmen Chu. On the Board of Supervisors, Chu pushed Caltrans to initiate last year’s safety improvements. Although Tang didn’t initially mention pedestrian safety when asked about her transportation priorities, she followed up with Streetsblog saying she’d like to discuss the issue further. If you have a pedestrian safety question you’d like us to bring to Tang’s attention, let us know in the comments.

Update: Tang told ABC 7 that pedestrian improvements are slated for the intersections of Sloat and Everglade Drive, Forest View Drive, and 23rd Avenue.

The intersection of Lake Merced Boulevard and John Muir Drive, where Eileen Barrett was killed in a crosswalk Saturday. Reports indicate that the Muni driver may have been turning left on to Lake Merced when he or she hit Barrett.

A Muni bus driver ran over and killed Eileen Barrett, a 72-year-old woman from Daly City, in a crosswalk on Lake Merced Boulevard at John Muir Drive this Saturday.

Police say the crash is still being investigated, but according to the San Mateo County Times, “a preliminary investigation revealed the bus’ middle half struck the senior as she walked in a crosswalk.” The Muni driver was reportedly on an outbound run on the 18-46th Avenue line, indicating that he or she may have been turning left from John Muir on to northbound Lake Merced when he or she hit Barrett. The crash occurred just before 4:30 p.m., and although Barrett was originally expected to survive her injuries, she later died at SF General Hospital.

Barrett is the third pedestrian killed in San Francisco this year. In 2012, 19 pedestrians were killed on San Francisco streets.

“This is a tragedy,” said Elizabeth Stampe, executive director of Walk SF. “So many people walk around Lake Merced, in spite of the surrounding streets feeling more like speedways than walking paths — some even don’t have sidewalks.”

SF Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson Paul Rose told the SF Examiner that the bus operator will undergo drug and alcohol testing, as part of standard protocol for Muni crashes. There’s no indication as to whether the SF Police Department may seek charges against the driver or issue a citation.

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