Pedestrian Infrastructure

A Pedestrian Safety Task Force charged with coordinating and implementing actions to reduce pedestrian injuries and fatalities in San Francisco met for the first time Tuesday, bringing together a large group of representatives from different city departments who rarely sit down at the same table to talk about pedestrian safety.

The Inner Sunset could see its first parklet on Ninth Avenue in front of Arizmendi Bakery, introducing a new public space to its vibrant restaurant district, after dozens of neighbors and merchants showed up in support of the project at an SF Department of Public Works hearing today.

The SFMTA installed separation improvements on the Laguna Honda Boulevard bike lanes and added a raised pedestrian crossing on St. Francis Circle last week, tacking on a pair of safety features for vulnerable street users in two western neighborhoods of San Francisco that are notorious for high volume, high-speed car traffic.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who for the past 24 hours has served as Acting Mayor of San Francisco, said expanding the city's bike network will be his number one transportation priority in the coming year, along with pedestrian safety and improving Muni's reliability and performance.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has announced the city's latest Pavement to Parks project, a two-block pedestrian promenade [pdf] on Powell Street between Ellis and Geary near Union Square that will provide sorely needed public space for one of San Francisco's most crowded commercial districts. In a heavy dose of irony, the car-free space will be financed by an automobile company, Audi of America, who approached the city about six weeks ago.

With the SFMTA poised to install green bike boxes in both directions of Market Street at Van Ness Avenue, it got me thinking about how the agency could better design that intersection for the huge numbers of bicyclists who pass through it on a daily basis, particularly on eastbound Market where drivers and people on bikes have to crisscross to get in their respective lane. It could also be better designed for pedestrians, considering it's so wide and that Van Ness, a state highway, is an ugly street to cross.

Chinatown's crowded sidewalks, unsafe crosswalks and poor pedestrian signage are not likely to be among the endearing physical characteristic featured in any tourist brochure. Yet in a recent study -- the San Francisco Chinatown Pedestrian Safety Needs Assessment [pdf] and Safety Plan [pdf] conducted by the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) -- those issues were identified as several of the highest priority concerns for tenants, merchants and visitors to the popular area.

The San Francisco Police Department is asking the public for help in identifying a suspect from an alarming hit and run incident from early August, when a vehicle slammed into a pedestrian and carried him on the hood of the car, before fleeing the scene.