SF launches street safety overhaul as traffic deaths climb
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Mayor Daniel Lurie unveiled a citywide overhaul of street safety strategies this week, amid upticks in traffic-related injuries and fatalities.
The big picture: San Francisco previously committed to zero traffic deaths by 2024, but the street safety plan expired last year without success.
- Twenty-four pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes last year, the highest since 2007, and Lurie's new plan comes after a car struck and killed a 1-year-old in Hayes Valley on Sunday.
Driving the news: Lurie's Street Safety executive directive aims to address traffic fatalities by coordinating across departments and streamlining street safety project reviews to shorten implementation timelines.
- The plan establishes a working group that unifies 15 city agencies involved in transportation systems. The mayor's office will lead the group, while the public health department, police department and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will co-chair.
- Their priority will be to confirm and publish the 2025 High Injury Network — a map highlighting the corridors that see the most severe crashes — within 100 days.
Other actions include:
- Developing a plan to enforce safe electric scooter and bike operations.
- Establishing a process for evaluating safety infrastructure improvements when conducting street-level work, such as repaving.
- Bolstering police presence on high-injury roadways.
- Publishing a report identifying top crash-causing behaviors and corresponding enforcement strategies.
What they're saying: "Almost half of the traumas seen at San Francisco General Hospital are due to traffic crashes," emergency physician Christian Rose said at a press conference Monday.
- "About every 15 hours, someone is taken to San Francisco General Hospital after being injured in a traffic crash, which is more than 500 people a year who are severely injured, making this a public health crisis," Rose added.
- "If you were hit by a vehicle just going a few miles per hour over the speed limit at like 40 miles an hour here in the city, that'd be the equivalent of falling off of a five-story building," he noted.
Between the lines: Transportation safety advocates called on Lurie earlier this year to revive Vision Zero, the safety plan that expired last year, as traffic fatalities continue to climb.
- Twenty-two people — including 15 pedestrians — have died in traffic crashes this year as of November, city data shows.
- Most of this year's pedestrian fatalities involved seniors, according to Walk San Francisco.
Reality check: Some critics say efforts to strengthen street safety improvements dragged on too long in the past, and that several areas with completed safety improvements still see the same levels of traffic-related injuries.
- The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury has also criticized the police department's enforcement failures when it comes to traffic violations like speeding, which remain the leading cause of traffic deaths and severe injuries.
What we're watching: San Francisco became the first California city to deploy automated speed cameras earlier this year.
- The mayor's office says the program has helped the city achieve a 78% reduction in speeding vehicles on average across its 33 locations.
- The Board of Supervisors also passed a sweeping street safety ordinance in September, calling for upgrades like hardened daylighting on high-risk corridors and additional curb islands along dangerous intersections.