A driver killed a 67-year-old pedestrian Monday at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 2nd Avenue. “We are heartbroken to learn of another life lost on our streets,” said Walk San Francisco's Marta Lindsey. “We hold the victim’s loved ones and community in our thoughts.”
The organization also reminds people that this is the second senior killed on Geary this year. 77-year-old Yan Yan was hit by a driver on March 14 at Geary and 39th Avenue. She later died of her injuries.
More from Walk SF:
Geary Boulevard is on the city’s 2022 “high-injury network” map: the 12 percent of streets where 68 percent of traffic crashes occur. Geary Boulevard is 95 feet wide, with six vehicle travel lanes, including two bus-only lanes.
Details on the crash were sparse, possibly because it happened shortly after midnight when most of the shops that overlook the intersection were closed. Streetsblog did a survey of the area and determined that there are video cameras from a nearby convenience store that cover the intersection and probably caught the crash. The clerk at the store was unable to provide Streetsblog with video, however [see update at end]. The police report that the driver remained at the scene. They gave the usual cut-and-paste driver exoneration that "alcohol and or drugs do not appear to be a factor." It's unclear if the police have obtained any video of the crash.
That said, Streetsblog has done several reports on drivers mashing and killing pedestrians on and around Geary over the years. And Walk SF is absolutely correct to call out the ridiculous width of the street and the reckless driving it encourages. It's especially galling since SFMTA spent nearly two decades on bus-and-safety projects for the street. Yet compromises with merchants, preservation of parking, and a host of other shameful backsliding and watering down of the Geary projects left the street as dangerous as ever. Streetsblog has embedded the Tweet below from theFrisc in a previous post about Geary, but it still seems like the most concise statement on the failings of the street and the city to make it safe and "transit first":
Latching on to "the least we can do": Geary is exhibit A of taking the bar lower and lower. https://t.co/7AMPxZ6jIN
— The Frisc (@TheFrisc) August 15, 2023
As a result of all the compromises on Geary and a hundred other deadly streets, the city continues to fail at its now-expired Vision Zero commitments. "24 people were killed while walking in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number since 2007. A total of 42 people were killed in traffic crashes in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number in a decade," wrote Walk S.F. in their statement on the latest fatality on Geary.
“We’ve now lost two lives on one street just this year,” said Lindsey. “More must be done to redesign dangerous streets like Geary, where thousands of people walk every day. More than anything, we need the City to take comprehensive actions to keep drivers at safe speeds."
Update: June 4, 8:45 a.m. Streetsblog returned to the convenience store Tuesday evening and a different clerk said one of the cameras captured the crash and that the video was turned over to the police.
