Key Takeaway: Adjustments to pedestrian signals at intersections can make a substantial difference for safety. To continue improving safety for pedestrians with disabilities and older adults, we must secure more funding to install Accessible Pedestrian Signals and complete the roll-out of increased crossing times to all signals in the city.
Accessible Pedestrian Signals
The SFMTA currently operates 1,292 traffic signals within the City and County of San Francisco. The SFMTA installs Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) at all new intersections.
Accessible Pedestrian Signals are push buttons that tell someone to cross the street using audible tones, speech messages and vibrating surfaces. These non-visual signals help blind and low-vision people navigate city intersections.
San Francisco residents may request an APS at intersections, and they may also be added as part of signal adjustments and other capital projects.
As of February 20, 2024, APS have been installed at 40% of signaled intersections in San Francisco, a total of 520 intersections. The APS team produces a bi-annual report to track installation progress and share the intersection prioritization list. Accessible Pedestrian Signals have already been installed or will be installed at the intersections that were easiest to retrofit with new signals. As such, future APS installation will become increasingly difficult and expensive.
Unfortunately no new funding sources have been identified for APS installations beyond 2024, except for new signals or full upgrades.
Pedestrian Crossing Times
Leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs) are a change to traffic signal configurations that give people the "walk" signal at least three seconds before the drivers get a green light. Even the few extra seconds that LPIs give to pedestrians before vehicles start to move have been shown to reduce pedestrian-vehicle collisions as much as 60%.
Nearly all of San Francisco’s 1,292 signalized intersections have pedestrian countdown signals. Of these 1,292 traffic signals, 81% have either a leading pedestrian interval (LPI) for one or more crosswalks or else have no conflicts between pedestrians and turning vehicle traffic.
In 2018, the SFMTA also committed to increasing the amount of countdown crossing time shown to pedestrians at intersections from 3.5 feet per second to 3.0 feet per second. This change will amount to a couple of seconds of additional countdown crossing time at most intersections and as much as five additional seconds at lengthier crossings. It will also better communicate to all people — including seniors and people with disabilities — the amount of time left to cross the street.
This policy change was made in consultation with disability community organizations, which advocated for longer crossing periods to allow people with disabilities and older adults to safely cross the street.
The SFMTA has been gradually rolling out this new standard to the majority of the SFMTA’s 1,292 signalized intersections. Of the 1,292 traffic signals the SFMTA operates, 92% currently meet the walk speed 3.0 standard and the agency remains on track to reach our goal retiming all eligible signals to meet the walk speed 3.0 standard by the end of 2024.