Traffic Enforcement

Ingleside Station's new captain, David Lazar, has renewed stings on motorists who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections and crosswalks in his precinct, a popular practice among neighborhood residents that hasn't been employed since a previous captain left years ago, according to witnesses of the sting.

The Ingleside Police Station has a new captain and he's out of the blocks with a very progressive pedestrian safety agenda.  Captain David Lazar, who just assumed his post at the Ingleside Station on April 18th, will conduct a sting on motorists who fail to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks at five locations today from 2:30-8:00 pm. 

According to a "fact sheet" (PDF) released by the Mayor's office Friday, "new operational improvements and efficiencies" have been identified that will amount to $3.5 million in cost savings for the MTA, including giving MTA Executive Director Nat Ford more power over the SFPD's Traffic Company.

Anthropologists and transit advocates have long bemoaned the rise of The Sacred Rac, its subsequent worship by the majority of the people of the Asu tribe, and the attendant demise of bipedus norteamericanus, or the common pedestrian.  But new evidence appears every day that the once-endangered pedestrian may be seeing a resurgence in urban habitats throughout the nation.  

Last September, San Francisco's city attorney asked Judge Peter Busch to allow an exemption to the long-standing bicycle injunction so the MTA could improve the city’s second most dangerous intersection for cyclists, where Fell Street meets Masonic Street.  Even after the MTA adjusted signalization and gave cyclists a separate green light, cars are running the red light and hitting cyclists.

You see them everywhere. Drivers yakking on their handheld cell phones despite a California law that's been on the books for more than six months now that makes it illegal.  So, is anyone getting ticketed? Yes, but unfortunately it's a toothless law.

The SF Examiner published an excellent editorial from Walk San Francisco Director Manish Champsee today that calls on the city and the media to improve conditions for pedestrians and not immediately blame the victim in crashes.  When a vehicle killed 87-year-old Victor Cinti in mid-December, the Examiner ran a front-page headline "Jaywalker Killed."  Sells papers, sure, but the headline and the article missed the details of the story and found culpability where they shouldn't, argues Champsee.

On a recent Tuesday morning, at Folsom and 25th streets in The Mission, I watched one of the more bizarre street-cleaning rituals I've ever seen in any city. I know San Francisco drivers get a free parking pass in front of numerous churches on Sundays (just check out Valencia Street), but I had never seen car owners squat on the sidewalk for street cleaning.

The Municipal Transportation Agency's federally-funded parking experiment, SFPark, is shaping up to be the most powerful tool remaining in the city's traffic-busting toolbox considering the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's criticism of congestion pricing and Mayor Newsom's recent tempered support for the plan.