Pedestrian Safety

"Every year, 360 people are killed in the Bay Area as a result of traffic crashes," said Jenn Fox, with the Vision Zero Network. "Each of these tragedies is a person--a family member, a community member ... we must get over our complacency."

Thousands of people, including lots of kids, came out to the Excelsior neighborhood yesterday morning and afternoon to enjoy a bright and sunny Sunday Streets on Mission Street. This one ran from Avalon/Theresa to Geneva Streets, and marks the final Sunday Streets event of 2017.

Thanks to I-880 and its complex of on and offramps, walking or bike riding through Oakland's Chinatown, downtown, or on routes to Jack London Square and the estuary, can be pretty awful.

Some two-thirds of citations for driving in transit lanes and bike lanes, failing to yield to pedestrians, and other motor vehicle violations, are issued to Transportation Network Company (TNC) cars such as Uber and Lyft--this according to a study from the police department of violations in downtown San Francisco.

Will protected bike lane policy directives ever get absorbed by street-level crews?

Urban planners, at least when it comes to bikeway design, are still trying to undo the damage caused by vehicular cyclists in the 1970s and 80s, explained Bill Schultheiss, a traffic engineer who specializes in bike design and a member of the Bicycle Technical Committee and the Pedestrian Task Force of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD), with the Toole Design Group. "There was a fear that cyclists would no longer be able to ride in the streets and would be relegated to sidewalks," he added. "To this day, that has discouraged protected bike lanes in the [road engineering] guidance."

There was a bit of a dust-up late Friday on Twitter when the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition called out Caltrans over "public service" announcements that blame our most vulnerable road users for their own deaths and injuries.

Yesterday evening, some thirty bicycle advocates in yellow t-shirts again cordoned off a section of Valencia Street's Uber drop-off zone (also known as the bike lane) in the Mission, between 18th and 19th.

Yesterday, the San Mateo Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that could be the first step towards a statewide ban on texting while walking in a crosswalk. The resolution, introduced by Supervisor David Canepa, "urges the state legislature to take action to promote traffic safety by prohibiting use of cell phones while crossing streets or, alternatively, giving express authority to local jurisdictions to regulate the issue."