Bike Talk: SFMTA’s Failed Vision Zero Effort

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It’s ten years since San Francisco signed its “Vision Zero” pledge to end all fatal traffic crashes, and things are worse than ever, with 39 deaths in 2022 and 23 tabulated so far for 2023. Bottom line, the city has failed to achieve its goals and there’s little sign that things are improving.

Just before the holiday break, Streetsblog editor Roger Rudick wrote a commentary accusing SFMTA and San Francisco’s politicians of faking the entire effort by building plastic and paint instead of concrete infrastructure. BikeTalk, the premier radio program on all things bikey, was impressed by the piece and asked Rudick and advocate Stacey Randecker to join him in a discussion that aired in various markets across the country over the weekend. The Rudick-Randecker segment starts at 15:46 and is now available to podcast.

The full show, entitled “Connecting the DOTs,” starts with a segment with LADOT’s Senior Traffic Engineer Tim Fremaux about LA’s Mobility Plan. It ends with a talk about biking in Tokyo with the Cycling Embassy of Japan ambassadors James Szypula and Chad Feyen. All three conversations are worth a listen.