San Francisco officials said Sunday that a woman had died at the hospital and an infant remained in critical condition following a horrific crash in which an SUV slammed into a Muni bus stop Saturday afternoon. That brought the death toll in the incident to three.
Authorities said a man and a young child died at the scene of the collision at Ulloa Street and Lenox Way in the West Portal neighborhood. The driver was traveling eastbound when the SUV crashed into the bus stop just steps from Muni’s West Portal station around 12:15 p.m., according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Police said Sunday that officers were still investigating what caused the driver to veer into the bus shelter, a busy transit hub located along a commercial corridor with a library, playground and schools nearby.
While an investigation continued, police added that “we do not believe that traffic engineering was a factor in this case.”
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose district includes the West Portal neighborhood, said in a statement emailed to The Standard on Sunday: “My heart is utterly shattered by the loss of life in our community.”
“We do not yet know the cause of the collision, and we are waiting to learn more from the full investigation,” she said.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is investigating the crash along with the police.
“Right now, we’re continuing to try to figure out exactly why this happened,” said a spokesperson for the SFMTA in an email to The Standard.
First responders arrived on the scene Saturday afternoon to find the child and the man in critical condition. The two were pronounced dead at the scene, while three others, including the driver, were taken to a local hospital.
The Standard’s media partner, ABC7, reported that friends said that the “victims were a family.”
The executive director of the pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco, Jodie Medeiros, added: “This is a family that was out enjoying the spring weather. These lives were cut way too short.”
The group said it would hold a vigil for the victims Monday at 5 p.m. at the crash site.
Medeiros called the collision “one of the worst pedestrian tragedies to ever occur on San Francisco streets.”
On Sunday, she helped community members set up a makeshift memorial at the crash site with flowers and stuffed animals.
“This is incredibly devastating,” she said.
Muni closed the West Portal station for several hours after the collision before reopening it just before 7 p.m. Saturday.
“Our hearts break for those killed and injured, and our thoughts are with them and their families,” Muni said in a statement.
According to city data in connection with Vision Zero, a city initiative put in place a decade ago that aimed to end fatal crashes in San Francisco, there were 39 deadly crashes in 2022 and 22 in 2023.
Transportation activists say the effort has failed to yield results because the city government has moved far too slowly to put in place street changes that could meaningfully bring down severe injuries and deaths.
Luke Bornheimer, a San Francisco transportation activist, said in a statement tweeted out Saturday that the fatal crash was “a tragic reminder that San Francisco’s streets are dangerously designed and encourage people to drive fast and recklessly.”