Five pedestrians killed in just five weeks

In the course of just five weeks, five pedestrians – including a two-year old girl – were killed in traffic crashes across San Francisco.

At one of the crash locations, Mission Street and Naglee Avenue, another pedestrian had been killed just three months prior. Both were hit and run crashes.

And last Friday, a woman bicycling in the Inner Sunset neighborhood was hit and then dragged by a construction truck, suffering devastating injuries including the loss of a leg. We are reeling from these horrific and heartbreaking crashes.

At Walk San Francisco, we track all pedestrian fatalities, including capturing as many details about crashes as possible. Because of this, we know we are vulnerable getting around San Francisco if we’re on foot – and it’s not because we aren’t being careful enough as pedestrians.

The vast majority of the time pedestrians are hit, they are crossing in the crosswalk, like the two-year-old girl crossing with her mother at 4th and Channel Streets on February 27. The 46-year-old man killed in North Beach on March 5 was on the sidewalk when he was hit.

Too often, too many people falsely blame pedestrians. This distracts from the real problems: dangerous driving, street design, and vehicle design.

And too often there is a painful gap between public commitments and what actually changes on our streets.

Holding our City leaders accountable, supporting victims, & winning more solutions

Our leaders have the power to do more to address the real problems – and Walk SF won’t stop demanding this. We do this on behalf of victims, their loved ones, and everyone who walks in San Francisco every single day.

Right now, with the support of our members, Walk SF is:

• Supporting victims and their loved ones along with our Families for Safe Streets group. Thank you to those who came to the recent vigil we held to remember the little girl killed in Mission Bay. You’re invited to join us at a vigil for the two-year anniversary of the devastating crash in West Portal on Thursday, March 19 at 5:30PM in West Portal.
• Getting this issue the attention it needs and deserves. The lives cut short deserve being acknowledged, and the public needs to understand both the threat and solutions. Working with the media for stories like this one, hanging memorial signs at crash locations, up-to-date fatality tracking, holding vigils, and social media are all part of this.
• Looking to the first stated deadline within Mayor Lurie’s new Street Safety Initiative. The Street Safety Initiative Mayor Lurie authored and signed in December includes deadlines for the actions within it. The first deadline – 100 days – is coming up on March 25. We are eager for Mayor Lurie to share what progress has been. Within the Street Safety Initiative, Mayor Lurie did something no previous mayor has: created a first-ever Safe Streets Task Force within the Mayor’s Office. If this new Task Force can get agencies working together more efficiently, it could help deliver more safety solutions at the scale needed and prevent them from being watered down or delayed.
• Continuing to fight to protect funding for safe streets projects in the SFMTA’s next budget. This will be decided in April, which is why it’s so important for you to email SFMTA leadership now. Learn more and send your email.

I know so many of you shared in our heartbreak, anger, frustration, and fear. One of our members, Harrison Anderson, is channeling that in a very powerful way tomorrow. Read more for some inspiration.

Step by step and as a community, we will keep fighting for and winning the solutions needed to keep us safe.