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San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney will be the next 17th Assembly District representative. Tuesday's runoff election was called for Haney after he attained a decisive and insurmountable lead over former SF Supervisor David Campos, garnering over 63 percent of the vote.
Haney posted the following:
We made nearly 180,000 calls and knocked on over 85,000 doors. So proud of our incredible field team, volunteers and supporters led by @hanzousf. This is still how you win elections--listening to people, speaking to them directly about things they care about, and hard work.
As a 501c3 public charity, Streetsblog can't endorse candidates in elections. However, it can celebrate the victory of a politician who has presided over dramatic and tangible improvements to our streets that will save lives (and probably already have).
The impact of Matt Haney is clearest just by taking a short bike ride or walk north of Market Street through District 3 and then South of Market through his District 6. While much remains to be done, the wide busy streets of SoMa have seen an unrivaled transformation. There are now parking-protected bike lanes and bus boarding islands on many streets, making for a tangibly improved and safer experience riding and walking through the area. Although it would be remiss not to give credit to former Supervisor Jane Kim, whose work Haney continued, the bike improvements stretch across the district on Howard, Folsom, the Embarcadero, and other streets in the neighborhood.
Haney has also overseen crosswalk improvements in the Tenderloin, also in his district, and pushed for car-free zones. Although he would be the first to admit his successor will have their work cut out for them.
And, of course, many of the improvements that have been realized came at a terrible cost. As editor of Streetsblog, I will never forget visiting the intersection of Howard and 6th, where Tess Rothstein was killed in 2019. Matt Haney, a relatively new supervisor at the time, was determined to find out what had to be done to make sure such tragedies were prevented in the future.
Here's video of what he said that horrible morning; he was clearly and genuinely outraged by the delays that lead to Rothstein's death.
"As supervisor of District 6, he worked to get immediate improvements on Howard Street in response to a fatality, which then helped to spur the creation of the SFMTA’s quick-build process, resulting in several new protected bike lanes," wrote the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in its endorsement. "He funded and championed a neighborhood-wide 20 mph speed limit and no-turn-on-red policy in the Tenderloin."
Contrast that to adjoining districts, where "infrastructure," if one can call it that, has been so watered down by politics that it consists mostly of useless stripes and sharrow. As to David Campos and his former district, Valencia Street still doesn't have its protected bike lane. And his attempts to roll back transit-priority "red carpet" lanes on Mission enraged transit advocates.
"Matt Haney is well known within the community as someone who repeatedly shows up in a genuine way to advance street safety," wrote the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
And now Haney will pick up where David Chiu left off, supporting Automated Speed Enforcement, integrated transit, and other state bills near and dear to advocates for safe streets. Streetsblog wishes him the best of luck.
