A painted safety zone is an example of a quick and effective tool to increase pedestrian safety at intersections with a history of pedestrian collisions. Photo taken August 5, 2015.
Today we were thrilled to join Mayor Ed Lee, the Board of Supervisors and our sister agencies to announce that we’ve reached a major milestone in support of Vision Zero.
As part of the city’s commitment to “Vision Zero,” a plan to eliminate all traffic deaths in San Francisco by 2024, the SFMTA developed a list of 24 high-priority Vision Zero projects in February 2014 to improve safety on San Francisco’s streets and sidewalks. We had committed to quickly implementing these 24 Vision Zero engineering projects in 24 months – by February 2016.
We are proud today to announce that these projects have not only been completed ahead of schedule, but that we are going to be delivering six more high-priority Vision Zero projects by February 2016.
The 24th project completed is two painted safety zones at the intersections of Geary and Leavenworth and Eddy and Mason streets. As some of you might already know, painted safety zones are effective and easily implemented. They increase pedestrian safety by creating more distance between turning vehicles and pedestrians waiting on the sidewalk, encouraging vehicles to turn more slowly, and maintaining good visibility between drivers and people stepping into the crosswalk.
Completing these 24 projects ahead of time, with more on the way, reflects our sense of urgency and core belief that traffic deaths are preventable and unacceptable. Exceeding our goal of completing them all ahead of schedule was a demonstration of how our agency is delivering more, better, faster.
These 24 projects (and the additional six we’ll be completing) are a fraction of the engineering work the SFMTA has been doing in support of Vision Zero. They were selected because they are located on San Francisco’s high-injury corridors for pedestrians and bicyclists, were visible, demonstrated a range of safety treatments, and were thought to be feasible within 24 months.
Moving forward, our work in support of Vision Zero will remain focused on improving safety on San Francisco’s 125 mile-long High-Injury Network, the 12 percent of San Francisco streets where more than 70 percent of severe and fatal collisions occur. Using a two-pronged approach, the SFMTA will tackle at least 13 miles of the network with safety improvements each year. Combining fast, cost-effective safety measures at specific intersections and constructing large projects on high-injury corridors will enable us to move the needle on our ambitious, but achievable goal of Vision Zero.
San Francisco now has a Vision Zero project map, which provides detailed information about the 24 projects and more, intersection by intersection, showing the comprehensive nature of the city's work to achieve Vision Zero.
For more information, please visit www.visionzerosf.org