Pedestrians

"There is an epidemic of traffic fatalities and it can’t go on... Every one of us thinks: 'What if that was my child?'" The mayor of a major American city said this today, announcing efforts to pursue Vision Zero, the goal of ending traffic deaths within ten years. Standing at the site where a child was killed by a driver, he said, “That is, in fact, how we have to make public policy and how we have to implement public policy."

SFPD Traffic Company Commander Mikail Ali offered a particularly bizarre explanation yesterday for why a significant number of pedestrians killed in the city are Asian seniors: They're recent immigrants who are confused by our traffic patterns, he said.

In an emotionally-charged discussion, the dangers of walking on San Francisco's streets took center stage at yesterday's Board of Supervisors meeting, the first since an alarming number of San Franciscans were injured and killed by drivers over the holiday season.

Tune in to 910 AM at 6 p.m. for Gil Gross' show, where I'll be on the air to discuss SF's recent spate of pedestrian crashes, the SFPD's habit of blaming pedestrian victims, and what we can do to make our streets safer. For a preview of the show, you can check out Gross's August discussion about research on "distracted walking."

Despite the glimmer of hope brought by the arrest of two reckless drivers who killed pedestrians, the SFPD is still blaming people walking on the streets for getting hit by motorists.

In what could be a departure from the SF Police Department's usual failure to penalize reckless driving, officers have arrested two of the five motorists who have killed people on San Francisco streets since December 20.

The city recently launched the WalkFirst program to lay a data-driven, participatory foundation for the effort to attain the main goal of its Pedestrian Strategy -- cutting pedestrian injuries in half by 2021. In the coming months, staff from the SFMTA, the Planning Department, the Controller's Office, and the Department of Public Health will field public input on dangerous streets and release new data illustrating the toll of pedestrian injuries and deaths.

The vision for a block-long pedestrian plaza on Irving Street in the Inner Sunset is taking the next step, with the launch of a community-based study. Dubbed "Irving Commons," the plaza idea was warmly received by neighbors when it was presented two years ago at Inner Sunset Sundays, a street party organized four times per year on the block of Irving between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

Kurt Dalen, a 30-year-old Mission District artist, was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Valencia Street south of Duboce Avenue at about 2:45 a.m. last Thursday.