Monday, October 02, 2023

San Francisco for people as well as cars

I'm not walking as many San Francisco streets as I did for a long while, but I still get out and about. And I still encounter these sad markers of pedestrian carnage.

My sense is that we've come out of the pandemic driving even more erratically than we did before. The self-driving cab fleet generally smooths the flow; without imagination, the little zombies don't attempt to weave in and out of traffic. But some humans ... !

As of September 22, there had been 14 pedestrian deaths in the San Francisco this year. Two of those killed were older persons using crosswalks in the Mission-Valencia corridor.  

A new bicycle lane down the center of Valencia may or may not be helping. Both drivers and cyclists sometimes seem confused by it.

Advocates and local politicians are focusing on banning some right turns on red lights.

According to the city’s transit agency, turn-on-red crashes account for 20% of all pedestrian or bicycle-related injuries. In an experiment in the Tenderloin, the agency found that banning right turns on red has led to a decline in car collisions with pedestrians and a 70% reduction in cars blocking crosswalks.

Pedestrian advocates will be taking our concerns to the Municipal Transit Board this Tuesday. 

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