San Franciscans can agree that bicyclists and pedestrians should not be killed in car crashes. But opinions on how to do that vary.
The city has tried a slew of measures over the past decade, from street design to traffic signal tweaks to targeted enforcement, with negligible bottom-line results. Some motorists tell The Standard they think any real solution must start with telling pedestrians to take more responsibility.
“Pedestrians jaywalk, walk drunk or stoned,” said Richard Brandi, a historic preservationist who lives in West Portal. “Nothing is going to stop those accidents.”
Of the 33 people killed in traffic accidents so far this year, 21 were pedestrians. And with a month still to go, 2024 has already surpassed 2016 to become the second-deadliest year since the city pledged to eliminate traffic deaths. San Francisco’s Vision Zero data suggest that in recent years, drivers were at fault for most pedestrian deaths caused by cars.
Still, some think safety measures do more to inconvenience motorists than to protect pedestrians.
Readers emailed The Standard in response to a story about the city’s failures to protect pedestrians on roadways. They generally disapprove of the measures the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has taken to reduce pedestrian fatalities — including sidewalk bulb-outs or curb extensions, elevated crosswalks, speed cushions, slow streets, and daylighting — and call on the city to focus instead on enforcing traffic laws.
Daylighting, which involves removing parked cars from around crosswalks in order to improve visibility and just wiped out about 14,000 street parking spaces, has proved especially controversial.
“If someone doesn’t die because of it, we will never know, while the living have to suffer,” Nina Geneson Otis wrote in an email to The Standard. The real estate broker said daylighting is the kind of policy that makes Democrats lose elections.
Otis also said pedestrians in California “deliberately don’t seem to want to pay attention and will even walk out in front of cars.” She added that her intention was not to victim-blame pedestrians hit by cars, but also that “pedestrians need to be more aware and respect traffic laws.”
Others say the city’s actions remove responsibility from pedestrians to look out for their own safety. “A pedestrian can do anything, and be irresponsible, and no harm will come to them?” Brandi said, describing the policies as “idiot-proof.”
Arguments about the streets flourish on Reddit, where some residents are trying to shift the blame for traffic deaths away from cars.
“Pedestrians seriously need to take some accountability, as do bicycles,” wrote one user, who claimed to be a first responder. “How many times have you witnessed people crossing the street with their head in their phones? How many times have you seen people crossing the road in the rain with their giant hood over their heads, face pointed to the ground? How many times have you seen bicycles blow through stop signs? You can’t even count these types of numbers.”
Neil Mosher said he wants to see cops take speeding and reckless driving more seriously — not more changes to streets. The retired business owner said the city should also add signage targeting pedestrians and run an information campaign to promote safety while walking.
“They’ve got an agenda, and that’s fine,” Mosher told The Standard. “But I think we got problems with pedestrians and with drivers.”
Brandi does not expect traffic deaths to ever disappear. But how many each year?
“I don’t know what the number should be,” Brandi said. “But it’s a utopia to think it’s going to be zero.”