Streets of S.F. a road hazard as pedestrian deaths spike (SF Chronicle)

I came across this article in the SF Chronicle yesterday while eating at the 9/10 Dining Hall, and I thought it was particularly relevant to our class. The issue of bureaucratic sluggishness on moving projects ahead and the desire (and inability) to get everyone to agree on transportation projects is a huge problem for places like San Francisco. It becomes not only annoying but actually dangerous when the places that are supposed to be seeing these improvements are the site of numerous fatalities for people walking and biking.

Source here.

Perhaps this article could prompt some questions for us to explore on Feb 28 when we have a speaker panel of folks who have directly dealt with processing and implementing transportation changes like the ones discussed in this article… We can also discuss the pedestrian issues addressed in this article tomorrow, since this week's topic is walking.

Here's a snippet of the article, but you should check out the full story on the SF Chronicle website here.

"San Francisco has put together a lot of plans and budgeted a lot of money to reduce pedestrian and bike accidents and generally make its streets safer. 

"But people keep getting maimed and killed by cars - and some city officials and residents think part of the reason is that the city has been slow to follow through with its proposals to improve street designs and crack down on drivers who break traffic laws. 

"A spate of pedestrian fatalities at the end of 2013 and the beginning of this year - including the death of 6-year-old Sofia Liu on New Year's Eve and a man who was killed by a car in the Parkside neighborhood Tuesday - shows that the city's streets remain dangerous. Yet just 6 percent of San Francisco streets account for 60 percent of incidents in which pedestrians are severely injured or killed. On those streets, high-injury corridors representing 5.2 percent of the city's street miles are the site of more than half of all pedestrian deaths and injuries. 

"While the number of hazardous blocks isn't numerous, bringing down the number of deadly collisions hasn't been easy. The city has earmarked tens of millions of dollars for re-engineering dangerous corridors in recent years, but some seemingly simple projects can take years. In the meantime, bicycle and pedestrian fatalities spiked in 2013: 21 people were killed while walking, the most since 2007, and four bicyclists lost their lives, the highest number since 2001."