New SFPD data indicates that the Park District's most dangerous intersections have nothing to do with the Wiggle, where Captain Greg Corrales has devoted his station's limited traffic enforcement staff to ticketing bike commuters who roll stop signs.
Under SFPD's "Focus on the Five" campaign, captains have pledged to target the five most dangerous intersections in their districts. The latest Park Station newsletter [PDF] listed five intersections with high numbers of collisions attributed to certain traffic violations. The newsletter also lists the intersection with the "highest collisions involving bicyclists." None of these locations are on the Wiggle, or even in the Lower Haight, the neighborhood that the bike route runs through.
When I asked Captain Corrales if he still plans to regularly post officers on the Wiggle to ticket bicycle riders who don't fully stop at stop signs, he said in an email that "we will continue to be responsive to community concerns."
The list confusingly names two different intersections as having the most crashes caused by red light running and speeding, and there is no time frame given. (Corrales said he would try to find out what period is covered by these stats.)
The most obvious pattern is that nearly all the intersections on the list involve streets designed to carry lots of car traffic at high speeds. These include Geary Boulevard, Masonic Avenue, Divisadero Street, and Lincoln Way.
Oh, and that intersection with the most collisions involving bicyclists? It's Fell Street and Masonic, which is notorious for drivers violating the left-turn signal while bicycle and pedestrian traffic crosses along the Panhandle, even after the SFMTA installed more visible signal heads because drivers complained that they weren't obvious enough.
It's good to see Captain Corrales publishing collision data in his newsletter -- it indicates, at least, that he's aware of it. For the sake of the safety of San Franciscans moving through his district, let's hope he lets it guide his decisions on where his limited enforcement resources are best put to use.
